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NEW    PLOTTINCtS   INT   AID   OF   THE   REBEL   DOCTRTNE  OP 
STATE  SOVEREIGNTY. 


MR.    JAY'S    SECOND    LETTER 

ON 

DAWSON'S  INTRODUCTION  TO  THE  FEDERALIST. 


Exposing   its  Falsification   of   the;   History   of   t:ie    Constitution  ;    its 

Libels  on    DUANE,   LIVINGSTON,  JAY   and   HAMILTON  ;    and 

its    relation    to    recent    efforts    by    Traitors    at    home,    and 

Foes   abroad,    to    maintain   the    Rebel    Doctrine    of   State 

Sovereignty,    for    the    Subversion    of   the    Unity    of 

the    Republic   and    the    Supreme    Sovereignty    of 

the    American    People. 


"  The  bantling— I  had  liked  to  have  said — Monster." 

Washington  to  Jay  on  Mate  Sovereignty. 

"  If  any  man  attempts  to  haul  down  the  National  Flag, 
Mioot  him  on  the  spot." — Dix. 


N  K  \V      YORK: 

AMERICAN  NEWS  COMPANY,  121  NASSAU  STREET. 

LONDON : 

TRUBNER  &  COMPANY,  60  PATERNOSTER  ROW. 
1864. 


.-  *i 


Washington  to  Madison*,  1787  : 

"         *         *         Thirteen  Sovereignties  pulling  against  each  other  and  all 
tu^ins?  at  the  Federal  head,  will  soon  brine:  ruin  on  the  whole." 


Franklin  Pierce  to  Jefferson  Davis,  Jan.  6,  1860: 

(Quoted  in  the  Boiton  Journal ) 

"        *  The  fighting  will  not  be  along  Mason  and  Dixon's  line 

merely.     It  will  be  within  our  borders — in  our  own  streets,"  &c. 

Vallandigham  to  Col.  D.  D.  Inshall,  of  the  8ih  Alabama  Volunteers,  1863 : 
(Quoted  in  the  Boston  Journal.) 

"  ■  *  *  You  have  but  to  persevere,  and  the  victory  will  easily 
be  yours.  You  must  strike  home.  *  *  You  can  have  your  own  terms  by 
giving  battle  on  your  enemies'  soil." 

*  / 


NEW  PLOTTINGS  IN  AID  OF  THE  REBEL  DOCTRINE  OP 
STATE  SOVEREIGNTY. 


MR.  JAY'S  SECOND  LETTER 


DAWSON'S    INTRODUCTION 


THE     FEDERALIST. 


To  the  Editors  of  the  Evening  Post. 

Sirs, — When  in  February  I  wrote  my  first  letter  on  Mr.  Daw- 
son's edition  of  the  Federalist^  I  had  been  chiefly  struck  with 
the  instances  to  which  I  called  attention,  of  the  singular  misap- 
preciation  exhibited,  in  the  "  Introduction,"  of  the  character  of 
the  work,  its  extraordinary  misrepresentation  of  the  course  pur- 
sued by  the  friends  of  the  Constitution,  and  its  inexplicable 
violation  of  historic  truth  in  regard  to  the  most  familiar  incidents 
in  the  life  of  my  grandfather. 

In  the  face  of  the  fact  apparent  to  every  student  of  American 
history,  and  which  is  thus  stated  by  John  Adams,  "  Mr.  Jay 
had  as  much  influence  in  the  preparatory  measures  for  digesting 
the  Constitution  and  in  obtaining  its  adoption  as  any  man  in  the 
nation,"  a  fact  which  has  been  eloquently  dwelt  upon  by  Mr. 
"Webster  in  his  well  known  letter  to  the  Honorable  James  A. 
Hamilton  and  other  citizens  of  Westchester  county,  the  declara- 
tion of  Mr.  Dawson  that  Jay  found  in  the  Constitution  "  little 
that  he  could  commend,  and  nothing  for  which  he  could  labor," 
seemed  to  me  to  exhibit  a  very  remarkable  amount  either  of 
ignorance  or  of  malice. 

A  more  careful  reading  of  the  "  Introduction,"  the  tone  of  Mr. 


Dawson's  reply  printed  in  the  Evening  Post,  and  facts  that  have 
since  come  to  my  knowledge  of  his  association  with  certain 
writers  in  the  interest  of  the  Rebellion,  convince  me  that  it 
would  be  unjust  to  attribute  Mr.  Dawson's  errors  purely  to  ignor- 
ance, or  his  assaults  upon  Jay  simply  to  personal  malice  ;  and  I 
propose  to  consider  the  bearing  of  his  Introduction  upon  a  wide 
spread  attempt  now  being  made  to  mystify  and  demoralize  the 
American  people  in  regard  to  the  American  Constitution :  to 
convince  them,  if  possible,  that  they  do  not  constitute  a  nation : 
and  to  pursuade  them  that  their  only  safety  consists  in  dissolv- 
ing the  Union,  and  recognizing  the  individual  sovereignty  of 
each  separate  State. 

The  questions  involved  in  the  examination,  relate  to  the  con- 
stitutional history  of  the  country,  and  in  their  bearing  upon  the 
issues  of  the  pending  war,  concern  the  gravest  interests  of  the 
American  people.  In  noticing,  therefore,  some  parts  of  Mr. 
Dawson's  letter,  I  shall  not  reply  to  the  gross  personalities  which 
he  has  introduced,  seemingly  with  no  other  intent  than  to  divert 
attention  from  the  real  issue.  If  he  has  misrepresented  the  facts 
of  history,  as  I  shall  prove  that  he  lias  done,  he  cannot  justify 
those  misrepresentations  by  perverting  the  facts  of  the  last  de- 
cade :  nor  can  he,  by  his  abuse  and  slanders  of  the  living,  atone 
for  his  libels  on  the  dead. 

MR.  I)AWSON?S    PLEDGES   IN    ASKING   ASSISTANCE. 

Before  proceeding  to  expose  the  character  and  aim  .  of  Mr- 
Dawson's  introduction,  it  may  be  proper  for  me  to  explain  how 
I  was  induced  to  countenance,  at  his  hands,  an  edition  of  the 
F,  ,h  ralist.  Having  known  him  some  ten  years  since  as  an  active 
member  of  an  Anti-Slavery  League,  my  intercourse  with  him  had 
been  interrupted  by  causes  to  which  it  is  unnecessary  to  refer 
until,  on  the  17th  of  February,  1S02,  he  wrote  to  me  that  he  had 
undertaken  to  carry  an  edition  of  the  Federalist  through  the 
press,  and  asked  my  assistance.     He  said  : 

"  I  desire  to  make  such  a  work  as  will  satisfy  all  who  may 
"  examine  it."     And  he  closed  his  letter  with  this  assurance  : 

"  In  making  this  request,  I  beg  to  assure  you  that  I  am  actu- 
ated entirely  by  a  desire  to  render  justice  to  the  memory  of 
"  your  ancestor,  as  one  of  the  authors  of  the  work  in  question  : 


"  and  I  trust  that  for  the  same  reason,  and  for  the  purpose  of 
"  this  enquiry  at  least,  I  may  be  met  in  the  same  spirit,  regard- 
less of  past  differences  on  less  important  subjects." 
In  a  second  letter,  of  March  15, 1862,  he  remarked: 
"  As  I  have  said  before,  I  desire  to  produce  an  edition  of  the 
"  Federalist,  which  shall  stand  the  test  of  the  most  careful  ex- 
"  animation,  and  my  plan  of  operations  has  been  examined  and 
"  heartily  approved  by  Hon.  James  A.  Hamilton, — Mr.  John 
"  C,  his  brother,  is  too  sick  to  be  seen — and  I  have  received  the 
"  use  of  every  paper  which  he  has  in  his  possession.  It  will 
"  afford  me  the  greatest  satisfaction,  if  I  may  also  enjoy  the  hen- 
"  efit  of  your  papers,  and  your  advice  on  the  same  subject,  that 
"  those  who  follow  us  may  receive  from  our  hands  the  uncon- 
"taminated  writings  of  those  who  have  preceded  us." 

To  these  requests  and  assurances,  after  some  hesitation,  in 
view  of  the  urgent  occasion  for  an  edition  of  the  Federalist,  I 
persuaded  myself  that  I  should  accede.  How  Mr.  Dawson's 
pledges  have  been  kept,  will  appear  in  the  sequel.  I  promptly 
wrote  to  him,  as  he  says,  a  letter  of  sixteen  pages,  with  numer- 
ous references  to  the  works  of  Washington,  Franklin,  Adams, 
Jay,  &e.,  which  I  thought  might  assist  him  to  a  thorough  ap- 
preciation of  the  contest  in  regard  to  the  Constitution ;  and  I 
sent  him  three  extracts  from  letters  of  Washington  and  Jay, 
bearing  upon  the  same  general  topic,  advising  him,  however,  at 
the  same  time,  as  he  admits,  that  I  could  find  nothing  among 
Jay's  papers  relative  to  the  Federalist. 

Having  thus — setting  aside  personal  differences — done  what  I 
could  to  assist  Mr.  Dawson  (with  whom  I  had  not  spoken  for 
years)  to  make  his  edition  of  the  Federalist  as  complete  as  pos- 
sible, and  his  acknowledgment  of  my  courtesy  and  my  assist- 
ance having  been  rendered  in  a  manner  calculated  to  induce  the 
belief  that  I  approved  of  his  conduct  as  an  editor,  I  feel  myself 
absolutely  at  liberty  to  subject  his  part  of  the  work  to  "  the 
careful  examination "  which  he  invited :  and  to  show,  not  by 
vague  assertions,  but  by  particular  facts,  that  he  has  not  only 
broken  faith  with  me  in  his  volunteered  pledge  to  do  justice  to 
my  ancestor,  whom,  as  I  showed  in  my  former  letter,  he  has 
grossly  misrepresented,  vilified,  and  belied;  but  that  he  has 
with  questionable  faith  towards  the  subscribers  to  the  work,  and 


towards  the  American  people,  converted  their  reverence  for  the 
Federalist  to  his  own  purposes,  and  made  this  edition,  which  I 
was  induced  to  believe  would  be  "  uncontaminated,"  the  vehicle  for 
circulating,  in  an  introduction,  distorted  criticism  on  the  work, 
monstrous  misrepresentations  of  the  truth  of  history,  and  unjust 
aspersions  on  the  fame  of  the  authors  ;  in  short,  that  this  volume, 
so  eagerly  subscribed  for  by  loyal  citizens,  as  an  honest  edition 
of  the  Federalist,  is  welcomed  by  apologists  of  secession  as  coming 
from  a  sympathizer  with  the  London  Times  in  its  assaults  upon 
our  nationality,  and  as  calculated  to  strengthen  that  "  monster  " 
doctrine  of  State  Sovereignty  which  is  now  striving  to  overthrow 
our  Constitution. 

NORTHERN    CONSPIRACY    TO   AID   THE   REBELS. 

The  Foening  Post  has  occasionally  directed  attention  to 
i{  Papers  from  the  Society  for  the  Diffusion  of  Political  Knowl- 
edge," organized  under  the  auspices  of  Mr.  S.  P.  B.  Morse,  and 
there  is  reason  to  believe  that  a  wide-spread  conspiracy  exists 
throughout  the  North,  among  the  sympathizers  with  the  re- 
bellion, for  organizing  a  State's  Eights  party,  for  the  subversion 
of  the  American  Constitution,  and  its  reconstruction  on  the 
basis,  not  of  National,  but  of  State  sovereignty. 

It  will  be  remembered  that  the  rebel  commissioner  from  Mis- 
sissippi to  Maryland,  in  December,  1S60,  expressly  declared  that 
"  their  plan  was  for  the  Southern  States  to  withdraw  from  the 
Union  for  the  present,  to  allow  amendments  to  the  Constitu- 
tion." And  it  is  well  known  that  the  rebels  have  been  recom- 
mended, by  their  Northern  sympathizers,  to  continue  their 
resistance,  in  the  hope  that  the  American  people  might  be  in- 
duced to  acquiesce  in  a  project  of  national  suicide.  In  the 
Senate  of  New  Jersey,  a  bili  has  been  recently  introduced,  to 
punish,  with  fine  and  imprisonment,  whoever  shall  enlist  free 
negroes,  thus  exhibiting  the  spirit  of  State  sovereignty,  and  the 
manner  in  which  the  doctrine  may  be  made  effective  to  weaken 
the  National  Government,  and  add  strength  to  the  rebellion.  A 
recent  Boston  paper  calls  attention  to  new  movements  in 
Massachusetts,  of  rebel  sympathizers,  under  the  name  of 
"Citizen  Caucuses,"  and  the  use  of  this  term,  for  the  purpose 
of  disloyalty  and  treason,  recalls  its  employment  for  similar  ob- 


jects,  during  the  administration  of  our  first  President.  It  was 
a  favorite  designation  with  that  disreputable  faction  which 
fomented  the  rebellion  in  Pennsylvania,  to  increase  the  embar- 
rassments of  Washington,  and,  if  possible,  to  overthrow  the  Gov- 
ernment ;  which,  in  defiance  alike  of  patriotism  and  decency, 
encouraged  Genet,  the  Minister  of  the  French  Republicans,  in 
his  efforts  to  compromise  our  neutrality,  and  his  threat  to  appeal 
from  the  President  to  the  people,  and  which  exhibited  the  extent 
to  which  party  hostility  may  be  carried,  by  gravely  charging 
Washington,  Hamilton,  and  Jay,  with  intent  to  subvert  the 
Constitution  and  establish  a  monarchy.  Such  were  the  patriots 
who,  in  the  excess  of  their  zeal  for  the  good  of  the  people,  im- 
itated the  Jacobins  of  Paris,  f.nd  substituted  "  Citizen  "  for  Mr., 
and  "  Citess  "  for  Miss. 

The  efforts  of  the  faction  which  is  to-day  repeating  towards 
the  administration  of  Mr.  Lincoln  the  conduct  of  its  predecessor 
towards  that  of  Washington,  are  by  no  means  confined  to 
caucuses. 

Among  the  elaborate  works  issued  by  this  modern  band  of 
conspirators,  who  call  themselves  indifferently,  "  States'  Rights 
Democrats  "  and  "  Federal  Republican  Citizens,"  is  one  upon 
which  I  chanced  in  the  "  Astor  Library,"  entitled,  "  Citizen- 
ship Sovereignty,  by  J.  S.  Wright,  assisted  by  Professor  J. 
Holmes  Agnew,  D.  D.,  Chicago.  Published  for  American 
Citizens,  the  true  maintainers  of  State  Sovereignty,  1803." 
The  latter  of  these  gentlemen  has  since  been  announced  as  the 
editor  of  the  Knickerbocker,  which  in  an  article  of  the  March 
number,  entitled,  "  The  Issue  Between  the  North  and  the 
South,"  denounces  the  Declaration  of  Independence  as  inspired 
by  "  a  spurious  philosophy."  As  Mr.  Wright  and  Doctor 
Agnew  cordially  recognize  Mr.  Dawson,  as  an  efficient  co- 
worker with  them  in  their  labors  for  destroying  and  recon- 
structing the  Constitution,  and  quote  him  as  almost  wholly 
concurring  in  their  views,  it  will  be  useful  to  glance  at  the 
principles  and  theories,  which,  according  to  them,  Mr.  Dawson 
has  brought  to  his  editorial  exposition  of  the  character  of  the 
Federalist  his  elucidation  of  the  history  of  the  Constitution, 
and  the  fame  and  services  of  its  framers  and  expounders.  The 
work  of  Messrs.  Wright  and  Agnew — no  name  of  printer  or 


8 

publisher  appears,  but  the  funds  are  supplied  by  "  a  kind  patro 
in  "New  York,"  and  some  in  Chicago — seems  to  be  intended  as  a 
feeler  of  the  public  pulse.  Its  law,  according  to  the  advertisement, 
is  approved  of  by  the  Hon.  Chas.  O'Conor — a  statement  which, 
however  honestly  made,  I  regard  as  singularly  erroneous  and  un- 
just to  that  eminent  jurist,  and  its  authors  have  been  constantly  as- 
sisted by  Mr.  S.  F.  B.  Morse,  to  whom  they  make  their  acknowl- 
ments  for  his  "judicious  counsel  and  affectionate  interest."     Its 
display  of  learning  is  well  calculated  to  impress  the  uninstructed 
and  careless  reader,  while  its  parade  of  impious  piety,  its  daring 
familiarity   with   God's   designs,   its   audacious   application   of 
Scriptural  texts,  its  affected  jealousy  of  the  honour  of  "  our  King 
Jehovah,"  and  its  misplaced  invocation  "  for  enlightenment  by 
the  Holy  Ghost,"  seem  intended  to  divert  the  attention  of  the  un- 
suspecting, from  the  diabolical  character  of  the  plot  which  is 
gradually  unfolded  in  the  volume,  for  overthrowing  the  constitu- 
tional liberties  of  our  Republic  and  the  National  Sovereignty  of 
the  American  people,  and  subjecting  all  loyal  citizens  to  the 
tender  mercies  of  slavery  and  secession.     The  reader  is  treated 
with  references  to  the  Bible,  and  Barbeyrac,  Bacon  and  Puf- 
fendorf,   Grotius   and   Hooker,    Sir   Walter   Raleigh   and    Sir 
Thomas    Ridley,    Ilobbes    and    Harrington,    Cumberland    and 
Clark,  Sherlock  and   Selden,  Tower  and  Milton,  Filmer  and 
Locke,  Burlamaqui  and  Montesquieu,  Ferguson  and  Rutherford, 
Vattel  and  Ward,  Bentham  and  Wheaton,  Webster  and  Kent, 
Martens  and  Heineccius,  Foucher  and  Lieber,  Manning  and 
De  Tocqueville,  Gillies  and  Bynkershoeck,  Wolfe  and  Rous- 
seau, Blackstone  and  Sydney,  Manning  and  Thirlwall,  Aristotle, 
Lord  Brougham,   Guizot,   Lacroit,    and  ]STecker.     He   is   cau- 
tiously advised  of  the  unfairness  of  Kent,  the  misconceptions  of 
Story,  the  erroneous  theories  of  Hamilton  and  Jefferson,  the 
ignorance  of  John  Adams  of  the  ABC  of  the  Constitution, 
the  errors  of  Madison,  the  confusion  of  principles  exhibited  by 
the   views   of   Marshall,    Rawle,   Wheaton,    Dane,   Bradford, 
Web-ter,  Duer,  Lincoln,  Everett,  Curtis,  and  Motley,  and  is 
taught  that  on  important  points,  the  Governmental  teachings 
of  Wheaton,  Kent,  and  Story,  have  the  same  tendency  with 
those  of  Rosseau,  Tom  Paine,  and  the  French  school  of  Infi- 
delity (page  49).     Amid  this  condemnation  of  the  publicists  of 


9 


America,  the  teachings  of  Calhoun  are  eulogized ;  the  oppor- 
tnness  is  welcomed  of  "  Sectional  Controversy,"  a  hook  by 
Wm.  Chaunccy  Fowler,  LL.  D.,  published  by  Scribner,  New 
York,  advocating  the  right  of  secession,  and  warm  praise  is 
bestowed  on  Bishop  Hopkins'  "  valuable  work,  the  American 
Citizen.'1''  The  reader  is  next  taught  that  a  Sovereign  State 
should  be  unaccountable  to  all  else  but  Deity  :  (p.  48),  and  that 
it  was  ignorance  of  Governmental  principles  which  led  the  North, 
almost  to  a  man,  to  deny  the  right  of  secession. 

Among  the  wrongs  of  the  South,  is  included  by  the  authors, 
c'  the  infamous  deception  as  to  supplying  Forts  Sumpter  and 
"  Pickens,  *  *'  *  to  say  nothing  of  previous  wrongs, 
which  are  greater  than  even  the  South  has  known  !"  (51.) 

The  only  remedy  for  secession  is  represented  to  be  a  "  re- 
newal of  the  league,"  and  "  every  slave  stolen  or  absconded, 
and  all  losses  or  injuries  of  every  description  to  be  paid  for." 
"  The  South"  (says  the  author),  "  can  never  with  honour  consider 
"  the  question  of  re-union,  except  on  the  Federal  basis,"  *::"  *  * 
"  and  the  alternative  being  war  or  consolidation,  which  must 
"  bring  monarchy,  I  hope"  (he  adds),  "with  all  my  heart,  the 
"  South  will  adhere  to  its  course,  though  the  war  should  last 
<'  fifty  years,"  (p.  59). 

These  States'  Rights  Democrats,  with  a  marvellous  assurance, 
think  this  a  fitting  time  to  enlarge  upon  the  advantages  which 
the  people  of  the  North  have  derived  from  the  South  giving  to 
the  Federal  service  their  "genuine  aristocrats,"  whose  superior- 
ity to  the  better  classes  at  the  North  is  warmly  insisted  upon. 
(Page  151.) 

"If"  (say  these  model  democrats! — and  it  is  hard  to  say 
whether  the  sham  aristocracy  of  the  Southern  slave-masters  or 
the  sham  democracy  of  their  Northern  serfs  is  the  most 
despicable,)  "  we  cannot  have  and  perpetuate  a  high  grade 
"  of  aristocracy  from  which  our  rulers  shall  be  almost  uniformly 
"  elected,  we  can  never  sustain  free  Government.  Revolu- 
"  tions  and  anarchy  must  be  our  fate,  till  we  find  relief  in  Des- 
"  potism,  and  then  fortunate  shall  we  be,  if,  by  establishing  an 
'  hereditary  Aristocracy,  with  all  its  burthens,  we  shall  reach 
''  as  free  a  condition  as  Britons  enjoy."  (P.  150.)  "  Let  the 
"  nobility  of  Britain  understand  that  they  have  in  us,  earnest 


10 

1  coadjutors  to  maintain  Aristocracy"  (153) ;  and,  as  if  to  show 
the  sincerity  of  this  assurance,  we  have,  on  page  159,  a  sentence 
almost  as  startling  in  its  sentiments  as  in  its  grammatical  con- 
struction : 

"  Had  George  III.  only  been  as  good  a  Tory  as  were  our 
"  Fathers,  (sic)  the  noble  fellow,  for  he  was  a  splendid  monarch, 
"  would  never  have  endured  the  mortification  of  acknowledging 
"  the  independence  of  these  States." 

The  reader,  after  duly  digesting  this  new  fact  in  American 
History,  will  remember  that  our  Constitution,  which  Mr. 
Dawson  characterizes  as  "  the  devoted  instrument,"  forbids  the 
granting  of  patents  of  nobility  ;  there  is  in  this  prohibition  a 
real  grievance,  which  loudly  demands  the  reconstruction  of  the 
Constitution,  to  secure  to  us  "  as  free  a  condition"  as  is  enjoyed 
by  Britons. 

The  author  proves,  to  his  own  satisfaction,  that  the  Confede- 
rate States  "  have  nobly  sustained  themselves,"  and  are  better 
able  to-day  to  continue  the  contest  than  when  it  was  begun,  and 
asks :  "  Should  not  such  a  power  be  recognized  by  sister  nations 
"as  having  an  existence"  (p.  1G3)?  and  assures  Britain  that 
"  thousands  of  us  in  the  North  will  rejoice"  if  she  will  lead 
Europe  in  thus  maintaining  States'  Bights.  The  writer  might 
here,  with  great  propriety,  have  eulogized  the  democratic  gen* 
tlemen  of  New  York  who  secretly  approached  Lord  Lyons  ana 
besought  him  to  secure  the  intervention  of  the  British  Govern- 
ment in  our  domestic  affairs,  an  act  of  infamy  on  the  part  of 
American  citizens  which  should  never  be  forgiven  nor  forgotten. 

Mr.  Wright  expresses  displeasure  at  the  timely  and  able  letter 
of  Mr.  Motley  to  the  London  Tunes,  that  ally  of  secession, 
vindicating  our  nationality:  but  declares  that  "Mr.  Henry  B. 
"  Dawson  has  a  rod  in  pickle  that  will  be  sufficient  to  whip  him 
"  (Mr.  Motley)  into  the  traces."  (P.  187.) 

The  reader  is  now  deemed  prepared  for  the  development  of 
the^lot;  a  coming  struggle  in  the  North  on  the  question  of 
State  Sovereignty  is  predicted  as  at  hand,  and  we  are  told  that 
"  the  struggle  in  the  days  of  Adams  and  Jefferson  was  nothing 
"  to  what  this  will  be."  (P.  192.) 


11 

A  page  or  two  further,  and  the  infernal  scheme  is  hinted  at, 
rather  than  disclosed,  by  which  these  pious  States-rights  gentle- 
men think  to  accomplish  the  destruction  of  our  nationality,  and 
the  overthrow  of  the  sovereignty  of  the  people : 

"Yet  will  it  not  be  the  most  impossible  of  circumstances,  if 
"  the  Federal  republican  citizens  of  the  North  should  be  joined 
"  with  the  armies  of  the  South,  to  re-establish  the  Federal  insti- 
"  tutions  of  our  Fathers  against  the  efforts  of  consolidists  and 
"  abolitionists.  May  God  save  us  from  such  a  horrid  catas- 
"  trophe,  yet,  if  it  must  come,  in  order  to  save  our  institutions, 
"Amen!" 

This"  Christian  resignation  to  the  banding  together  of  North- 
ern renegades'and  Southern  traitors,  to  desolate  the  homes  of  all 
who  cling  to  the  American  Constitution  and  the  American  Flag, 
is  illustrated  by~an  impious  application  of  the  text,  as  a  warning 
to  those  who  are  disposed  to  resist  the  traitors,  "  "Woe  unto  him 
who  striveth  with  his  Maker." 

Similar  hints  begin  to  abound  in  the  secession  newspapers  of 
the  North.  The  Detroit  Free  Press  of  the  17th  March,  1864, 
in  a  leader  headed  "Is  a  Revolution  Imminent?  "  threatens  the 
Government  that  unless  it  yields  to  their  demands,  "  a  revolu- 
tion will  come  sweeping  over  the  country  with  the  besom  of 
destruction." 

The  writer  again  refers  to  the  London  Times,  the  demolition 
ot  whose  arguments  in  favor  of  secession  he  is  not  disposed  to 
forgive,  and  says,  once  more  (p.  197) :  "  Mr.  Dawson  will  soon 
publish  a  reply  to  Mr.  Motley's  letter  to  the  London  Times." 
Then  comes,  on  page  197  of  Mr.  Wright's  volume,  a  passage  of 
great  signiiicance  in  illustrating  Mr.  Dawson's  charges  of  fraud- 
ulent conduct  on  the  part  of  Hamilton  and  his  associates,  in  the 
Introduction  to  the  Federalist : 

"  It  has  been  supposed  that  prior  to  the  adoption  of  the 
present  Constitution  we  were  almost  in  anarchy;  to  use  the 
words  of  the  elegant  Mr.  Motlej-,  '  in  chaos.'  Mr.  Dawson  will 
soon  publish  a  reply  to  Mr.  Motely's  famous  letter  to  the  Lon- 
don Times,  to  which  the  reader's  attention  is  earnestly  bespoken, 
wherein  he  demonstrates  our  immense  prosperity  at  that  time, 


12 


and  beyond  doubt  it  could  have  been  said  of  us  as  Moses  said  of 
the  Hebrews.  But  Jeshuran  waxed  fat,"  &c.  Although  an- 
nounced by  prospectus  nearly  two  years  ago,  the  world  has  not 
yet  been  favored  with  this  wonderful  letter  of  Mr.  Dawson, 
which  has  so  delighted  the  hearts  of  the  Chicago  secessionists, 
and  which  is  to  demonstrate  "  our  immense  prosperity  "  at  the 
most  critical  and  gloomy  period  of  our  history. 

I  will  add  but  one  more  extract  from  Mr.  Wright's  volume. 
The  opening  clause  of  the  Constitution,  "  We  the  people,"  is  a 
clause  detested  by  these  "  Federal  Republican  citizens."  It  un- 
mistakeably  recognizes  the  nationality,  the  sovereignty  of  the 
American  people,  which  the  foes  of  our  country  at  home  and 
abroad  are  resolved,  if  possible,  to  destroy.  The  significance  of 
those  words  was  not  overlooked  when  the  Constitution  was 
adoped.  Patrick  Henry  said,  in  the  Yirginia  Convention, 
"  Have  they  said,  '  We  the  States?'  Have  they  made  a  proposal 
"  of  a  compact  between  the  States  %  If  they  had,  this  would  be 
"  a  Confederation.  It  is  otherwise,  most  clearly,  a  consolidated 
"  Government.  The  question  turns,  sir,  on  that  poor  little 
"  thing,  the  expression,  'We  the  People,'  instead  'of  the  States 
"  of  America.' " 

Mr.  Wright  thinks  that  the  founders  of  the  Constitution 
should  have  said,  "  We  the  Ptoplcs^  (a  word,  I  believe,  hardly 
used  with  us  until  anglicized  by  Kossuth,)  and  he  speaks  in  his 
book  not  of  the  American  people,  but  of  "  these  A-merican 
Peoples." 

At  its  close,  amid  Scriptural  texts  and  pious  ejaculations  that 
besprinkle  the  page  like  a  sermon,  occurs  this  objurgation  : 

"  The  very  first  three  words,  "  We  the  People,"  of  that  in- 
"  strument,  drawn  without  a  public  invocation  of  Divine  wis- 
"  dom,  with  no  recognition  of  the  Sovereign  of  the  Universe, 
"  have  been  the  prime,  almost  the  sole  cause  of  leading  these 
"  peoples  astray  and  into  civil  war.  *  *  *  Accursed  be  the 
"  instrument,  no  matter  what  loved  and  honored  names  are  at- 
"  tached  to  it,  that  thus  dishonors  the  Monarch  of  all  Peoples. 
"  Tear  it  to  shreds,  trample  it  in  the  dust,  damn  it  to  evcrlast- 
"  ing  infamy,"  &c  &c.     P.  198. 


13 

The  volume  from  which  these  extracts  are  taken  is  entitled 
<{  Introductory  Compend,"  and  it  is  to  be  followed  by  a  work  to 
be  entitled  "  Our  Federal  Union — State  Rights  and  "Wrongs," 
in  five  volumns,  at  $2  50  each,  and  it  is  announced  that  Dr. 
Agnew  is  to  issue,  with  appropriate  notes  from  the  "  Republican 
Stand-Point,"  translations  of  Aristotle,  Grotius,  and  Puffendorf. 

MR.    DAWSON'S    CONNECTION    WITH    TOESE     CONSriEATOES,    AND    THE 
PART   ASSUMED    BY    HIM. 

But  the  author,  and  the  work,  upon  which  Mr.  Wright  and 
Dr.  Agnew  seem  chiefly  to  rely  for  important  aid  in  their  scheme 
against  the  Constitution,  which  they  would  tear  to  shreds, 
trample  in  the  dust,  and  damn  to  eternal  infamy,  is  Mr.  Henry 
B.  Dawson,  and  his  edition  of  the  Federalist.  They  evidently 
look  to  him  as  a  leader,  and  quote  him  as  an  authority.  In  the 
■"  Explanatory,"  p.  iv.,  they  say  : 

"  Many  of  the  ideas  in  the  compend  and  also  in  the  work  will 
u  be  so  novel  to  many  readers,  that  the  writer  deems  it  suitable 
*l  also  to  remark  that  they  are  almost  wholly  concurred  in,  both 
"  as  to  Governmental  principles,  and  as  to  historic  facts,  by 
"  Mr.  Henry  B.  Dawson,  who  being  in  a  similar  line  of  research, 
"  we  have  frequently  had  occasion  to  compare  notes.  The 
"  chief  point  of  difference  between  us  is,  that  he  considers  the 

"  WORD  '  NATION  '  SHOULD  NEVER  BE  USED  IN  CONNECTION  WITH  THE 

"  United  States,  each  State  being  the  only  '  natton  ;'  whereas 
"  it  appears  to  the  writer  that  with  clear  conceptions,  that  each 
"  State  is  the  real  nation,  the  United  States  may  properly  be 
"  called  a  '  nation '  of  nations.  Mr.  Dawson's  edition  of  the 
"  Federalist  has  been  alluded  to,  and  his  valuable  notes  will  he 
"found  coincident  with  the  views  herein  taken,  and  will  be  fol- 
lowed with  (sic)  the  publication  of  other  debates  connected 
"  with  the  adoption  of  our  Constitution,  most  opportune,  and 
■"  furnishing  important  information  of  which  few  have  knowl- 
"  edge.     *     *     * 

"  His  extensive  historical  explorations  convinced  him,  years 
"  ago,  that  we  wer»  all  wrong  about  the  theory  of  our  Govern- 
*<  ment." 

A  note,  with  a  statement  about  his  views  on  slavery,  in  which 


14 

it  says,  "Mr.  Dawson  very  properly  desires  to  have  it  addedr 
&c,"  intimates  that  the  statements  contained  in  the  text,  had 
been  approved  by  him  with  that  addition  /  and  with  the  new 
light  thus  thrown  upon  Mr.  Dawson's  theoretic  views,  the  facility 
with  which  he  bends  to  them  the  most  stubborn  facts  of  history, 
and  the  plan  of  action  in  which  he  is  co-operating,  we  recur  once 
more  to  his  Introduction  to  the  Federalist  :  prepared  to  under- 
stand aright  the  part  assumed  by  him  in  the  scheme  for  denation- 
alizing the  American  people  by  preparing  their  minds  to  discard 
the  American  Constitution,  and  to  demand  a  convention  of 
delegates  from  the  States  to  inaugurate  again  a  simple  con- 
federacy or  league,  from  which  each  State,  in  the  exercise  of  its 
separate  sovereignty,  may  secede  at  pleasure. 

It  is  to  be  noted  that  the  authors  of  "  Citizenship  Sovereignty  n 
profess  to  be  entirely  confident  of  success,  although  after  "  a 
tremendous  conflict."  How  widely  ramified  is  their  organize, 
tion  is  unknown,  but  they  say  (page  -±  of  "  Explanatory ") : 
"  The  views  taken  by  Mr.  Dawson  as  to  the  nature  of  our  exist- 
"ing  Government,  and  which  are  herein  also  presented,  are 
"  surely  to  be  adopted  by  ninety-nine  hundredths  in  the  North," 
and  they  speak  as  though  it  were  a  certain  thing,  of  "  the 
changes  that  must  be  made  in  the  new  Union." 

Among  the  first  steps  which  ingenious  plotters  for  the  over- 
throw of  our  Constitution  by  effecting  a  revolution  in  public 
sentiment  in  favor  of  the  confederate  form  of  Government,  which 
was  discarded  in  1789,  would  be : 

First,  to  undermine  the  confidence  of  the  people  in  the 
statesmen  who-  exposed  the  defects  of  the  confederation,  and 
recommended  the  Constitution. 

Secondly,  To  induce  the  belief  that  the  evils  under  which  the 
country  then  laboured,  and  which  led  to  the  relinquishment  of  the 
articles  of  confederation,  and  the  adoption  of  the  present  Govern- 
ment, did  not  naturally  result  from  any  defects  of  the  con- 
federacy, but  from  extrinsic  causi  s,  and, 

Thirdly,  To  show  that  the  people  had  been  induced  to  accede 
to  the  new  Constitution  on  false  pretences  and  by  political 
trickery. 


15 

The  publication  of  the  Federalist  with,  an  Historical  Intro- 
duction,  has  afforded  an  opportunity  which  lias  not  been  ne- 
glected, for  endeavoring  to  indoctrinate  the  American  public 
upon  these  three  points,  with  the  assumed  impartiality  of  an 
editor,  and  the  determined  recklessness  of  a  partizan. 

The  first  point — the  attempt  to  impair  the  confidence  of  the 
people  in  the  heroes  and  statesmen  who  laid  the  foundation  of 
our  country's  greatness — was  one  that  no  native-born  American 
could  be  expected  to  undertake.  Amid  all  the  divisions  and 
rancour  of  American  parties,  there  is  one  ground  on  which  our 
countrymen  are  accustomed  to  meet  in  harmony,  one  sentiment 
that  they  hold  in  common.  From  infancy  they  are^  taught  to 
rejoice  in  their  priceless  heritage  as  citizens  of  one  Republic,  and 
on  each  recurrence  of  our  national  birthday  they  meet  to  cele- 
brate in  unison,  the  brave  deeds  and  virtues  of  their  fathers,  and 
teach  their  children  to  do  reverent  homage  to  the  great  dead  of 
our  "Revolution. 

Not  even  a  foreigner  who  in  the  least  appreciated  the  historic 
grandeur  that  belongs  to  the  infancy  of  our  Republic,  the  hero- 
ism that  in  the  cause  of  Constitutional  freedom  defied,  in  the  field, 
the  armies  of  Britain,  and  the  statesmanship  which  commanded 
the  highest  eulogium  from  the  lips  of  Chatham,  could  descend 
to  the  low  office  of  violating  the  truth  of  History,  in  order  to 
revile  and  cover  with  odium  their  cherished  fame.  Easy  as  it 
is  to  pervert  facts  and  misrepresent  opinions,  to  rake  over  the 
newspapers  and  correspondence  of  the  Revolution,  and  hunt  up 
and  dig  out  the  exploded  slanders  of  the  last  century,  which 
have  been  buried  so  deep  that  their  unpleasant  effluvium  has 
hardly  polluted  our  atmosphere  for  generations  :  easy  as  it  is  to 
•disinter  these  decayed  libels,  and  to  attempt  to  re-animate  them 
with  the  breath  of  modern  secession,  and  present  them  to  the 
world  as  veritable  facts  of  history,  it  is  a  task  from  which  any 
man  whose  ancestors  had  fought  in  that  struggle  on  the  side  of 
liberty,  or  who  had  himself  drawn  his  first  breath  in  the  Ameri- 
can Republic,  would  naturally  have  shrunk. 

This  was  the  t'-ik  which,  in  the  scheme  disclosed  by  the 
*'  Explanatory "  of  the  Chicago  volume,  for  demoralizing  the 
American  people  in  regard  to  their  national  Constitution,  with  a 
view  to  aiding  the  Rebellion,  was  assigned  to  or  voluntarily  as- 


16 

sumed  by  Mr.  Henry  B.  Dawson.  His  fitness  for  the  work  had 
already  been  proven  beyond  a  question  by  the  reckless  audacity 
of  his  foul  attack  upon  the  fair  fame  of  General  Israel  Putnam. 

HIS   UNPROVEN   CHARGES   AGAINST   PUTNAM. 

With  none  of  those  advantages  of  education  which  the  country 
that  he  assisted  to  create  has  since  bestowed  upon  his  calumnia- 
tor, with  few  of  the  accomplishments  or  characteristics  which  are 
usually  associated  with  military  greatness,  and  in  despite  of  the 
temporary  prejudices  aroused  against  him  by  mishaps  for  which 
it  afterwards  appeared  he  was  not  responsible,  General  Putnam 
is  yet  one  of  the  most  popular  among  the  heroes  of  the  Revolu- 
tion. By  the  force  of  his  own  talents  and  energy  he  raised  him- 
self from  the  position  of  a  farmer  to  the  station  of  the  first 
Major-General  in  the  army  of  the  United  States,  standing  in  rank, 
according  to  his  biographer,  second  only  to  Washington  himself. 
Brave,  humane,  and  devoted  to  the  cause  of  his  country,  these 
manly  virtues  were  combined  with  an  illiterateness  that  seemed 
to  identify  him  with  the  masses,  and  his  fearlessness  and  patriot, 
ism  have  been  handed  down  as  household  words  :  while  the  stories 
of  his  entering  the  wolf's  den  as  a  boy,  and  of  his  dashing  down 
the  heights  of  Horseneck  where  the  British  cavalry  feared  to 
follow,  are  cherished  legends  with  the  American  schoolboy ;  and 
to-day  the  farmers  of  New  York  designate  the  county  that  bears 
his  name  by  the  title  that  was  familiarly  and  affectionately  given 
him  of  "  Old  Put." 

In  a  small  quarto  volume,  entitled  "  Gleanings  from  the  Har- 
vest Field  of  American  History,  Part  VI.,  by  Henry  B.  Daw- 
son," printed  at  Morrisania,  1ST.  Y.,  for  private  circulation,  in 
1SG0,  occurs,  in  a  note  on  page  1G5,  the  following  passage,  in- 
tended, by  a  stroke  of  the  pen,  to  brand  Putnam  as  a  traitor,  and 
thus  to  convert  the  gratitude  and  admiration  of  the  American 
people  into  execration  and  abhorrence: 

"The  evidence  is  before  me  which  clearly  proves  the  compli- 
'•  city  of  General  Putnam  with  Arnold  in  the  West  Point  treason, 
'•'  tor  which  Major  Andre  was  hung  and  General  Arnold  became 
"  an  exile  and  an  outlaw.*' 


17 


Not  a  scintilla  of  the  alleged  evidence  is  produced  nor  even 
referred  to,  unless  it  be  a  New  York  letter  in  a  London  news- 
paper of  December  21st,  177G,  which  says  Putnam  "never  was 
a  favorer  of  American  independence,"  and  which  is  entitled  to 
about  the  same  consideration  as  the  letters  in  our  time  of  "  Man- 
hattan," in  the  London  Standard,  or  those  of  Charles  Mackay, 
LL.D.,  in  the  London  Times,  or  any  other  of  the  romances 
written  to  order  by  the  British  advocates  of  secession. 

Washington,  who  had.  during  the  war,  disapproved  in  part  of 
Putnam's  conduct,  at  the  close  of  the  war  in  1783,  wrote  to  him 
in  these  words : 

"  I  can  assure  you  that  among  the  many  worthy  and  merito- 
"rious  officers  with  whom  I  have  had  the  happiness  to  be  con- 
"  nected  in  service  through  the  course  of  this  war,  and  from 
"  whose  cheerful  assistance  and  advice  I  have  received  much 
"  support  and  confidence  in  the  various  and  trying  vicissitudes  of 
"  a  complicated  contest,  the  name  of  Pctkam  is  not  forgotten : 
"  nor  will  it  be  but  with  that  stroke  of  time  which  shall  obliterate 
"from  my  mind  the  remembrance  of  all  the  toils  and  fatigues 
"through  which  we  have  struggled  for  the  preservation  and 
"  establishment  of  the  rights,  liberties,  and  independence  of  our 
"  country." 

During  the  Presidential  tour,  in  1789,  General  Washington, 
mindful  of  his  old  companion  in  arms,  and  of  the  attachment 
felt  for  him  by  the  country,  and  especially  by  New  England, 
selected  his  route  through  Connecticut,  with  the  intent  of  honour- 
ing him  with  a  visit,  and  Dr.  Dwight,  who  knew  Putnam  well, 
has  recorded  of  him  that  his  "  uprightness  commanded  absolute 
confidence." 

And  it  is  the  fame  of  a  Revolutionary  General  thus  trusted  by 
Washington,  thus  endorsed  by  his  intimate  friends,  and  thus 
cherished  by  the  American  people,  that  Mr.  Dawson  has  pro- 
posed to  blot  with  treason  and  infamy,  upon  the  unsupported 
word  of  a  hostile  Englishman,  and  the  slanderous  insinuation  of 
a  foot-note. 

It  must  be  admitted  that  Mr.  Dawson,  the  champion  of  the 
London  Times,  in  its  attacks  upon  our  nationality,  and  now  at 
once  the  editor  of  the  Federalists  and  the  friend  of  those  who 


IS 


are  striving  to  destroy  the  constitution  and  give  us  in  its  place  a 
compound  of  Southern  secession  and  British  aristocracy,  lias 
little  reason  to  feel  strong  affection  for  the  memory  of  the  Gen- 
eral who  once  sent  so  unpleasant  an  answer  to  Sir  Henry  Clin- 
ton, the  representative  of  that  "  noble  fellow,  and  splendid 
monarch,  George  III." 

Lieutenant  Palmer,  an  officer  in  His  Majesty's  service,  had 
been  arrested  within  our  lines,  and  Sir  Henry  demanded  his  re- 
lease. Putnam  replied  in  language  not  to  be  mistaken,  that 
Palmer  "  was  taken  as  a  spy,  lurking  in  our  lines,  he  has  been 
tried  as  a  spy,  condemned  as  a  spy,  and  shall  be  executed  as  a 
spy,"  and,  an  afternoon  postscript  to  the  note,  curtly  added, 
"  he  is  hanged." 

But  even  admitting  that  Mr.  Dawson,  in  view  of  the  awkward 
exposure  by  Mr.  Wright  of  his  desire  to  strengthen  the  London 
Times  in  its  malignant  assaults  upon  our  nationality,  may  be  ex- 
cused for  not  entertaining  a  warm  sympathy  for  an  officer  who 
dealt  thus  summarily  with  an  English  spy  who  falsely  assumed  to 
be  a  loyal  American,  it  must  still  be  admitted  that  his  effort  to 
overthrow  the  fame  of  Putnam  by  his  naked  ipse  dixit,  is  as  fine 
an  exhibition  of  British  assurance,  although  not  nearly  so  amus- 
ing, as  any  that  Bourcicault  has  pictured  fur  the  stage,  or  that 
the  American  people  have  yet  been  favoured  with  in  real  life. 

Where  sleeps  the  ample  proof,  alleged  by  Mr.  Dawson  to  be 
in  his  possession,  that  Putnam  was  the  accomplice  of  Arnold  ? 
Why  is  it  not  demanded  by  the  Historical  Societies  ol  Massachu- 
setts, Connecticut,  or  Vermont,  or  do  our  Historical  Societies 
think  that  they  have  nothing  to  do  with  the  memories  of  Ameri- 
can Statesmen,  beyond  furnishing  facilities  for  British  calum- 
niators to  distort  their  history  and  blacken  their  fame? 

There  is  no  true  patriot  of  the  Revolution  who  may  not  be 
condemned  as  guilly  of  untold  vices,  if  party  libels  and  newspa- 
per scurrility  are  received  as  proof.  Washington  was  denounced 
in  and  out  of  Congress  as  "  destitute  of  all  merits  as  a  soldier,  or 
a  statesman,"  and  accused  persistently  of  robbing  the  treasury — 
while  Jay  was  damned  as  a  traitor  who  had  sold  his  country, 
and  Hamilton  as  a  monarchist  who  was  resolved  to  overthrow 
the  Constitution  and  introduce  a  king. 

In  addition  to  the  lies  circulated  through  the  press,  no  small 


19 


amount  of  scurrility  was  perpetrated  in  more  ephemeral  ways ; 
and  I  was  told  tlio  other  day,  at  Boston,  by  the  venerable 
James  Savage,  President  of  the  Massachusetts  Historical  So- 
ciety, of  one  rather  remarkable  anathema,  which  will  be  an 
invaluable  addition  to  the  stock  which  Mr.  Dawson,  according 
to  his  announcement,  has  accumulated  with  a  view  to  proving 
Jay  to  be  unworthy  of  the  fame  accorded  to  him. 

It  was  during  the  height  of  the  excitement  aroused  by  the 
Democrats,  who,  under  the  lead  of  French  Jacobins,  raved 
against  the  Jay  Treaty,  that  Mr.  Savage  saw  these  words  chalked 
in  large  letters  on  the  board  fence  around  the  enclosure  of  Mr. 
Treat  Paine :  "Damn  John  Jay  !  damn  every  one  that  won't 
damn  John  Jay  !  !  damn  every  one  that  won't  put  lights  in  his 
windows  and  sit  up  all  night  damning  John  Jay  !  !  I" 

If  upon  this  curious  reminiscence  Mr.  Dawson  should  base  an 
assertion  that  Mr.  Treat  Paine  had  done  the  chalking  with  his 
OAvn  hand,  that  it  embodied  a  solemn  order  of  the  City  Council, 
and  that  all  Boston  sat  up  that  night  with  lights  in  their  win- 
dows damning  Jay,  and  all  who  refused  to  damn  him,  the  story 
of  Mr.  Savage  would  probably  afford  him  fifty  times  stronger 
proof  for  his  new  version  of  it,  than  he  can  adduce  for  his  most 
insolent  declaration  that  General  Putnam  was  a  traitor. 

By  the  same  rule,  some  Dawson  of  the  next  century,  may  de- 
clare that  he  has  the  proof  before  him  that  Mr.  Seward  was  "  an 
habitual  drunkard  :"  that  Gen.  Butler  was  a  veritable  "  beast:" 
that  Gen.  McClellan  had  a  secret  interview  with  Gen.  Lee  the 
night  after  the  battle  of  Antietam  :  and  that  Lincoln,  sometimes 
supposed  to  be  notably  honest,  truthful  and  patriotic,  was  in  fact 
"  a  liar — a  thief—  a  robber — a  brigand — a  pirate — a  perjurer — a 
traitor — a  coward — a  hypocrite— a  cheat — a  trickster — a  mur- 
derer— a  tyrant — an  unmitigated  ecoundrel,  and  an  infernal 
fool."  For  this  character  of  Mr.  Lincoln,  posterity  may  have 
the  personal  assurance  of  the  editor  of  the  Selimgrove,  Pa., 
Times,  a  democratic  sheet  that  swears  by  "Woodward,  Vallandig- 
hani  and  McClellan. 

Mr.  Dawson  has  adopted,  as  the  innocent  motto  of  his  auda- 
cious tract  on  Putnam,  the  verse  from  It  nth  :  "  I  pray  you,  let 
me  glean  and  gather  after  the  reapers  among  the  sheaves."  It 
may  be  impossible  to  lix  a  limit  to  the  license  of  quotation,  but 


20 

this  is,  I  believe,  the  first  time  that  the  gentle  appeal  to  Boaz 
has  been  cited  as  a  warrant  fur  playing  the  part  of  a  scavenger 
of  tory  libels  on  American  statesmen,  or  for  robbing  of  their 
fame  the  silent  dead  of  the  battle-fields  of  the  Revolution. 
Nearly  four  years  have  elapsed  since  that  dastardly  attack  upon 
the  patriotism  and  loyalty  of  the  farmer-soldier  of  New  Eng- 
land, and  although  Mr.  Dawson  declared  that  ample  proofs  of 
Putnam's  treachery  were  before  him  when  he  penned  the  slan- 
der, he  took  excellent  care  not  to  produce  them.  He  has  never 
since  submitted  them  to  the  world,  and  the  country  may  well 
cherish  its  ancient  confidence  in  the  patriot-general,  and  rest 
undisturbed  in  their  assurance  that  Putnam  was  loyal,  and 
that  the  charge  of  his  calumniator  is  false. 

In  view  of  his  treatment  of  Putnam — which  can  hardly  be 
characterized  in  language  that  a  gentleman  likes  to  use — the 
world  will  estimate  aright  the  assurance  given  in  Mr.  Dawson's 
reply,  that  he  can  produce  proofs  of  the  infamous  charges  he 
has  now  brought  against  the  great  statesmen  of  our  republic  ; 
for  the  reception  of  which,  he  has  converted  an  introduction 
which  pretends  to  be  historic,  into  a  cess-pool  of  libels  on  the 
authors  of  the  Federalist — libels  which,  like  insects  in  amber, 
the  Federalist  itself  is  insolently  made  use  of  to  preserve. 

IIIS   INJUSTICE   TO   CHANCELLOR   LIVINGSTON. 

Recurring  to  that  introduction,  let .  us  glance  at  the  portraits 
he  has  drawn  of  the  leading  friends  of  the  Constitution  in  New 
York.  One  of  the  most  earnest,  eloquent,  and  efficient  mem- 
bers  of  the  State  Convention,  Chancellor  Robert  R.  Livingston, 
who  had  been  Secretary  for  Foreign  Affairs,  and  had  been 
thanked  by  Congress  for  his  services  in  that  high  position,  and 
who  was  subsequently  our  minister  to  France,  appointed  by 
Jefferson,  is  declared  to  have  "  evinced  in  public  but  little  in- 
terest in  the  subject"  of  the  Constitution  ;  and  the  editor,  with 
the  same  assurance  with  which  he  pronounced  Putnam  a  traitor, 
accuses  Livingston  of  an  "  overpowering  love  of  ease,"  rendering 
him  "  dilatory  and  uncertain  ;"  and  with  these  unjust  slurs  upon 
his  character  and  his  course,  this  illustrious  statesman  is  dis- 
missed. 

How  wickedly  truthless  in  its  suggestions  is  this   view   of 


21 

Livingston's  connection  with  the  Constitution,  will  be  seen  by 
contrasting  it  with  a  sketch  by  Webster,  in  speaking  to  the  citi- 
zens of  New  York  : 

"  *  *  At  the  time  of  the  adoption  of  the  Consti- 
tution he  was  its  firm  and  able  advocate.  lie  was  a  member  of 
the  State  Convention,  being  one  of  that  list  of  distinguished  and 
able  men  who  represented  this  city  in  that  body  ;  and  he  threw 
the  whole  weight  of  his  talents  and  influence  into  the  doubtful 
scale  of  the  Constitution." 

HIS    WRONGFUL    INSINUATIONS    AGAINST   DUANE. 

Next  is  introduced  the  Honorable  James  Duane,  an  alumnus 
and  trustee  of  Kings,  now  Columbia,  College,  and  eulogized  by 
an  eloquent  writer  as  one  of  the  few  faithful  among  the  faith- 
less. As  his  biography  is  still  unwritten,  I  will  refer  briefly 
to  the  leading  incidents  of  his  life.  Mr.  Duane  represented 
New  York  in  the  first  Continental  Congress,  heading  the  list  of 
five  deputies;  and  Duane  and  Jay  are  referred  to  by  Lt.  Gov. 
Colden,  in  his  dispatch  of  the  Cth  July,  1774,  to  the  Earl  of 
Dartmouth,  on  these  illegal  proceedings,  as  "  two  eminent  law- 
yers." Duane's  course  in  that  Congress  was  so  satisfactory  to 
his  constituents  that  he  was  re-elected  in  April,  1775,  to  the 
Congress  which  met  in  Philadelphia  on  the  10th  May.  He  was 
present  on  that  clay,  assisted  in  raising  an  army,  electing  Wash- 
ington commander-in-chief,  establishing  a  post-office,  and  assum- 
ing other  powers  of  government.  He  attended  Congress  faithfully 
until  31st  May,  177 G,  when  New  York  claimed  his  attendance 
in  the  New  York  Convention,  to  assist  in  framing  a  State  Con- 
stitution, which  he  subsequently  reported,  acting  meanwhile  as 
an  active  member  of  a  special  committee  on  the  forts  in  the 
Highlands,  and  the  Committee  of  Safety,  In  1777,  Duane  was 
one  of  a  committee  to  arrange  the  Articles  of  Confederation. 
In  1778,  he  was  again  a  member  of  Congress,  at  the  urgent  re. 
quest  of  the  Governor  and  his  fellow-citizens ;  and  still  again  in 
1779-80. 

In  1781,  some  slanderous  articles,  published  anonymously  in 
the  newspapers  were  brought  to  the  attention  of  the  Legislature, 
and  that  body,  on  the  27th  June,  passed  a  joint  resolution  ex- 


22 

pressing  their  continued  confidence  in  him,  and  requesting  his- 
return  to  Congress.  At  the  same  time,  Generals  McDougal, 
Schuyler  and  Scott,  Colonel  Floyd,  Chancellor  Livingston,  Mr. 
"Wisner,  and  Gov.  Clinton,  who  had  been  his  colleagues  in  Con- 
gress at  different  times,  came  forward  in  his  full  vindication. 

At  the  close  of  the  war,  the  Common  Council  of  New  York 
City  petitioned  the  Governor  to  nominate  Mr.  Duane  as  Mayor ; 
"  as  no  one,"  they  said,  "  is  better  qualified,  so  none  will  be  more 
acceptable  to  us  and  our  constituents  at  large  than  Mr.  Duane. 
Few  have  sacrificed  more  or  deserve  better  from  their  country."' 

As  Mayor,  in  1785,  he  welcomed  to  New  York  the  old  Con- 
gress, and  in  17S9  the  first  Congress  under  the  Constitution, 
and  "Washington  as  President  of  the  United  States.  In  the 
Mayor's  Court,  and  as  State  Senator,  he  performed  valuable  ser- 
vices to  the  State,  and  in  1788  he  was  nominated  by  Washing- 
ton District  Judge  of  the  Southern  District  of  New  York. 

This  office  he  resigned  in  179-1,  when  he  declined  also  the 
wardenship  of  Trinity  Church,  which  he  had  held  since  17S1, 
having  been  a  vestryman  some  years  before  the  Revolution. 
Resolutions  were  passed  by  the  vestry  testifying  their  regard. 
lie  soon  removed  to  Duanesburgh,  where,  in  1795,  Bishop  Pro- 
voost  consecrated  an  Episcopal  church  built  at  Mr.  Duane's  ex- 
pense ;  and  in  1796  he  died  honored  and  beloved. 

Mr.  Dawson  takes  pains  to  blacken  the  memory  of  Judge 
Duane  by  charges  and  insinuations  of  sympathy  and  collusion 
with  the  Royal  authorities,  carefully  avoiding,  however,  specifi- 
cation of  time — a  most  convenient  omission  for  the  more  plausi- 
ble perpetration  of  this  sort  of  slander  — especially  if  the  reader 
should  fail  to  remember  that  in  the  commencement  of  our  Rev- 
olutionary difficulties  there  was  not  the  slightest  desire  for  inde- 
pendence on  the  part  of  the  colonies,  but  that  they  exhibited 
the  loyally  to  the  Royal  authorities,  which  after  the  Declara- 
tion of  Independence,  they  transferred  to  the  revolutionary 
government  established  by  the  people.  Washington,  Jay 
Duane,  and  many  of  those  most  instrumental  in  establishing 
the  National  independence  of  the  United  States,  and  con- 
stituting them  a  nation,  previously  held  honourable  places  under 
the  Crown  or  the  colonial  governments ;  and  the  charge  of 
sympathy  or  collusion  with   the  Royal  authorities,  against  a 


23 

statesman  like  Duane,  made  without  specification  of  time,  place, 
■or  circumstances,  while  it  may  seem  to  one  forgetful  of  these 
facts  to  have  a  narrow  basis  of  truth,  is  in  its  implication  against 
his  patriotism  infamously  false. 

Botta,  in  his  interesting  history  of  the  Revolution,  fell  into 
the  mistake  far  more  excusable  on  the  part  of  an  Italian,  writ- 
ing so  long  ago,  than  it  can  ever  be  on  the  part  of  later  histo- 
rians, of  supposing  that  "  there  existed  in  the  Colonies  a  desire 
for  independence." 

In  a  letter  (13  January,  1S21,)  to  Geo.  A.  Otis,  of  Boston, 
Jay,  in  regard  to  this  passage,  refers  to  the  explicit  professions 
and  assurances  of  allegiance  and  loyalty  to  the  Sovereign 
especially  since  the  accession  of  William  III.,  which  abound  in 
the  journals  of  Colonial  Legislatures,  and  the  Congress  and  Con- 
ventions, from  an  early  period  to  the  second  petition  of  Congress, 
in  17T5;  and  remarks,  that  if  they  were  factitious  and  decep- 
tive, they  present  to  the  world  an  unprecedented  instance  of 
long  continued,  concurrent,  and  detestable  duplicity  in  the 
Colonies.  He  adds,  "  our  country  does  not  deserve  this  odious 
and  disgusting  imputation.  During  the  whole  course  of  my 
life  and  until  after  the  second  petition  of  Congress,  in  1775,  I 
never  did  hear  any  American  of  any  class  or  description  ex 
press  a  wish  for  the  independence  of  the  Colonies." 

Dr.  Franklin,  in  language  if  possible  more  comprehensive, 
assured  Lord  Chatham  in  August,  1774,  that  he  "  never  had  heard 
in  conversation  from  any  man,  drunk  or  sober,  the  least  expres- 
sion of  a  wish  for  a  separation,  or  a  hint  that  such  a  thing 
would  be  advantageous  to  America."  The  letter  of  Jay  to 
Mr.  Otis  was  submitted  by  the  latter  to  John  Adams  and 
Jefferson,  both  of  whom  thoroughly  confirmed  its  statements. 
Jefferson  declared,  and  his  personal  and  political  sentiments 
add  force  to  his  testimony,  that  before  the  commencement  of  hos- 
tilities, "  I  never  heard  a  whisper  of  a  disposition  to  ([separate 
from  Great  Britain,  and  after  that,  its  probability  was  contem- 
plated with  affliction  by  all." 

Mr.  Gibbs,  in  the  just  and  philosophic  comments  with  which 
he  introduces  his  "Memoirs  of  the  Administration  of  "Washington 
and  Adams,"  after  quoting  Burke's  remark  of  the  American 
war,  that  it  was  not  a  Involution,  but  a  Revolution  prevented, 


Bays,  "  the  course  of  events  made  it  indeed  a  war  of  Indepen- 
dence, but  there  was  in  its  tone  nothing  revolutionary,  nothing 
subversive  of  the  established  order  of  things.  Some  leaders, 
more  far-seeing  than  the  rest,  had  predicted  the  result,  but  what 
the  people  wanted — what  they  took  up  arms  to  get,  was  not 
some  new  privilege — some  new  liberty,  but  the  security  of 
rights,  privileges,  and  immunities  which  they  had  always  had." 

On  the  6th  of  July,  1775,  Congress  published  a  declaration 
"  setting  forth  the  cause  and  necessity  of  their  taking  up  arms," 
and  in  this  they  proclaimed,  "we  mean  not  to  dissolve  that 
union  which  has  so  long  and  so  happily  subsisted  between  us, 
and  which  we  sincerely  wish  to  see  restored." 

On  the  8th  of  July,  1775,  two  days  later,  Congress  individu- 
ally signed  a  petition  to  the  King.  This  "rather  singular 
measure,"  in  the  language  of  the  Kew  York  Review,  "  origin- 
ated in  the  sagacity  and  prudence  of  Jay,  who  argued,  and 
wisely,  that  in  order  to  unite  the  nation  in  forcible  resistance  to 
Britain,  it  must  be  satisfied  that  all  possible  peaceful  remedies 
were  exhausted  by  the  action  of  Congress.  The  result  evinced 
his  wisdom.  Its  rejection  by  the  throne  was  the  throwing  away 
of  the  scabbard." 

The  petition,  according  to  Mr.  Curtis,  in  his  "History  of  the 
Constitution,"  was  refused  a  hearing  in  Parliament  as  emanating 
from  an  unlawful  assemblage  in  arms  against  the  Sovereign 
and  the  country  was  thus  prepared  to  accept  with  an  unanimity 
that  would  otherwise  have  been  impossible,  the  decisive  action 
of  Congress  which  culminated  in  the  Declaration  of  Indepen- 
dence. "While  touching  upon  the  subject  of  this  petition,  and 
Jay's  part  in  it,  I  may  refer  incidentallyto  the  testimony  of  Mr. 
Bancroft,  who,  in  his  seventh  volume,  had  unwittingly  clone  in- 
justice to  Jay,  by  erroneously  attributing  to  him  traits  which 
Jay  in  a  familiar  letter  to  an  intimate  friend  written  before  the 
Revolution,  and  before  his  own  character  had  been  developed, 
had  with  characteristic  modesty  attributed  to  himself.  In  his 
eighth  volume  Mr.  Bancroft,  while  gradually  unfolding  Jay's 
career  in  its  close  connection  with  the  history  of  the  country 
recognizes  "the  firmness  and  purity  of  his  character,"  and  the 
profound  wisdom  of  his  counsels  in  securing  unanimity  in  the 
adoption  of  a  National  policy  and  the  recognition  of  the  sov- 
ereignty of  the  people. 


25 

"  The  darker  the  hour,  the  more  he  stood  ready  to  cheer — the 
"  greater  the  danger,  the  more  promptly  he  stepped  forward  to 
"  guide.  He  had  insisted  on  the  doubtful  measure  of  a  second 
"  petition  to  the  King,  with  no  latent  weakness  of  purpose  or 
"  cowardice  of  heart.       *  *       Joining   a   scrupulous 

"  obedience  to  his  ideas  of  right  with  inflexibility  of  purpose, 
"  he  could  not  admit  that  the  Provisional  Congress  then  in 
"  session  had  been  vested  with  power  to  dissolve  the  connection 
"  with  Great  Britain,  and  he  therefore  held  it  necessary,  first, 
"  to  consult  the  people  themselves.  For  this  end,  on  the  1 1th 
"  of  June,  the  New  York  Congress,  on  his  motion,  called  upon 
"  the  freeholders  and  electors  of  the  Colony  to  confer  on  the 
"  deputies  they  were  about  to  choose  full  power  of  aclminister- 
"  ing  Government,  framing  a  Constitution  and  deciding  the 
"  question  of  Independence — in  this  manner  the  unanimity  of 
"  New  York  was  ensured." 

Mr.  Dawson  completes  his  calumnies  on  Duane  by  clc 
nouncing  him  as  "  an  unworthy  member  of  Congress,"  &c, 
&c,  and  the  fair  fame  of  this  gentleman,  so  closely  identified 
with  the  city  of  New  York  as  the  first  choice  of  her  citizens 
for  the  mayoralty,  honoured  by  Washington,  cherished  by 
Columbia  College  and  Trinity  Church,  and  remembered  with 
pride  and  affection  by  the  people  of  the  State,  is  without  the 
slightest  occasion  dragged  before  the  public,  to  be  branded  with 
infamy  and  dismissed  with  scorn. 

Then  come  the  two  statesmen  of  New  York  chiefly  identified 
with  the  Federalist,  and  the  triumph  of  the  Constitution,  to 
whom  a  classic  orator  of  Columbia  College  has  thus  referred : 

"  Before  our  Revolutionary  struggle,  while  itself  scarce 
"fledged,  our  college  took  an  eagle's  flight  and  gave  to  the 
"nation  and  its  coming  contest,  I  might  almost  say  its  sword 
"  and  shield,  the  Marcellus  and  Fabius  of  our  Rome,  Hamilton 
"  and  Jay.  What,  I  pray  you,  were  the  story  of  our  Itcvolu- 
"  tion  without  these  names." 

HIS   MALICIOUS   BLUNDERING   IN    KEGAED   TO   JAY. 

I  have  already  exposed  the  untruthfulness  of  the  charges 
against  Jay,  which  arc  made  with  such  blundering  ignorance,  as 


26 

almost  to  refute  themselves,  as  for  instance,  when  Mr.  Dawson 
declares,  that  during  the  contest  for  the  Constitution  in  New 
York,  Jay  was  not  looked  to  by  the  people  for  counsel  or  for 
leadership,  but  was  regarded  "  by  a  majority  of  his  fellow, 
citizens  as  selfish,  impracticable,  and  aristocratic,"  when  the 
total  New  York  city  vote  for  members  of  the  Convention  was 
2,833,  of  which  Jay  received  2,735,  leaving  to  represent  Mr. 
Dawson's  majority,  who  did  not  look  to  Jay  for  counsel  or 
leadership,  the  beggarly  account  of  9S.  While  on  this  topic,  I 
may  adduce  one  item  of  historic  information,  which  I  have 
within  a  day  or  two  received  from  Mr.  Bancroft,  and  which 
comes  just  in  time  to  place  the  stamp  of  error  upon  one  of  the 
reckless  assertions  of  Mr.  Dawson,  who  after  representing  Jay 
as  lukewarm  in  his  sympathy  for  the  Constitution,  says  that  he 
was  "  induced  to  undertake,"  the  portions  of  the  Federalist 
written  by  him,  "  both  of  them  being  subjects  which  his  posi- 
"  tion  enabled  him  to  discuss  with  unusual  ability,  without 
"  compromising  in  the  least  his  general  political  sentiments, 
"  and  without  obliging  him  to  assent,  even  by  implication,  to 
"  any  portion  of  the  proposed  Constitution." 

JAMES   MADISON   TO   THOMAS   JEFFERSON. 

"  New  York,  August  10,  1788. 

"  Colonel  Carrington  tells  me  that  he  has  sent  you  the  first 
<c  volume  of  the  Federalist,  and  adds  the  second  by  this  convey- 
"  ance.  I  believe  I  never  yet  mentioned  to  you  that  publication. 
''  It  was  undertaken  last  fall,  by  Jay,  Hamilton  and  myself. 
"  The  proposal  came  from  the  two  former.  The  execution  was 
"  thrown,  by  the  sickness  of  Jay,  mostly  on  the  two  others." 

Mr.  Dawson's  additional  charge,  that  "  some  portion  of  Jay's 
earlier  political  action  was  remembered,"  at  this  period  to  his 
disadvantage,  and  had  impaired  the  regard  and  confidence  of 
his  fellow  citizens,  is  also  disposed  of  by  that  most  significent 
vote,  and,  indeed,  by  the  concurrent  testimony  of  American 
historians.  On  the  16th  of  May,  1774,  he  was  appointed  one 
of  the  New  York  Committee  of  Fifty,  to  consult  on  the  measures 


27 

proper  to  be  pursued,  in  consequence  of  the  passage  of  the 
Boston  port  bill:  next,  one  of  a  sub-committee,  which,  on  the 
23d  of  May,  reported  a  letter  to  Boston,  of  which  copies  were 
sent  to  Connecticut,  Philadelphia,  and  South  Carolina,  propos- 
ing a  Congress  of  Deputies  from  the  Colonies  in  general.     On 
the  25th  of  July,  he  was  elected  unanimously  to  the  Congress  at 
Philadelphia,  and  there  drafted  the  address  to  the  people  of 
Great  Britain,  which  Jefferson  pronounced  the  production  of 
the  finest  pen  in  America — and  which  Dr.  Sam.  Johnson  an- 
swered in  his  "  Taxation  No  Tyranny."     "  That  address,"  said 
the  North  American  Review,  "  gave  to  Jay,  at  once,  an  ascend- 
ency  which   he    never    afterwards    lost."      In    1778,    elected 
President  of  Congress,  and  the  next  year  appointed  Minister 
to   Spain,   then    a   Commissioner   to   negotiate   the  Treaty   of 
Peace,  and  after  its  conclusion,  elected  Secretary  for  Foreign 
Affairs,  while  yet  abroad,    and  holding  that  place,   the  most 
important   in   the    Confederacy,   until   it   was    superseded   by 
the  Constitution,  when  Washington  offered  to  him  the  choice 
of  places,  and  he  selected  the  Supreme  Court ;  it  is  difficult  to 
conceive  of  a  more  truthless  charge  than  that  which,  without 
the  slightest  regard  to  facts,  has  been  so  blunderingly  brought 
by  Mr.  Dawson.     "  The  first  thing  that  strikes  us  in  it,"  said  Dr. 
McVickar,  in  the  New    Fork  Review,  October,  1841,  after  a 
after  a  rapid  sketch  of  Jay's  life,  "  is  the  unbroken  continuity — 
"  the  ceaseless  succession  of  honorable  confidences  throughout 
"  this  twenty-eight  years'  course,  reposed  in  Jay  by  his  country - 
"  men.     Prom  first  to  last  not  one  intervening  hour,  the  new 
"  office  or  new  honor  always  claiming  him  before  the  old  was 
"  ready  to  yield  him,  and  oftentimes  two  or  even  three  incom- 
"  patible  calls  of  his  country,  contending  for  his  choice ;  as,  for 
"  instance,  in  the  year  1795,  Special  Minister  to  England,  Chief 
"  Justice  of  the  Supreme  Court,  and  Governor  elect  of  the  State 
"  of  New  York,  all  at  one  and  the  same  moment.     This,  cer- 
"  tainly,  is  a  singular  fact  in  the  history  of  any  country  ;  but, 
"  above  all,  in  one  especially  jealous  of  such  monopoly.     What 
"  again  adds  to  their  wonder,  in  the  popular  judgment,  though  in 
"  ours  it  helps  to  explain  it,  is  the  total  absence  in  Jay's  char- 
"  acter,  of  all  personal  ambition.     If  honours  came,  they  came 
"  unsought,  and  as  often  rejected  as  accepted,  and  we  have  his 
"  own  direct  authority,  for  asserting  that  through  his  whole  life 


28 

"  lie  Lad  never  asked  an  office,  nor  solicited  a  vote ;  and  jet,  as 
"  we  have  seen,  honour  and  office  flowed  in  upon  him  in  a 
"  stream." 

The  American  people  are  too  well  instructed  in  their  own 
history  to  be  at  all  disturbed  in  their  estimate  of  Jay  by  the  un- 
supported assertions  of  a  foreigner.  Of  the  insinuations  against 
his  patriotism  and  purity,  so  audaciously  and  insolently  put 
forth  in  Mr.  Dawson's  letter,  where  each  charge  is,  if  possible, 
more  infamous  in  its  intent  than  the  preceding,  I  shall  take  no 
notice.  "Webster's  remark  that  "  when  the  spotless  ermine  of 
the  judicial  robe  fell  on  John  Jay  it  touched  nothing  less  spotless 
than  itself,"  stands  unquestioned  by  any  American  author,  of 
any  school  of  politics ;  and  when  it  is  known  that  Jay's  new 
assailant  is  an  Englishman,  who  denies  our  nationality,  and  would 
destroy  our  Constitution,  his  libellous  critiques  on  its  framers 
and  supporters,  after  the  first  flush  of  indignation  at  this  new 
instance  of  British  audacity,  will  arouse  no  sentiment  but  con- 
tempt, with  perhaps  a  slight  feeling  of  annoyance,  whenever  he 
may  chance  to  endorse  a  fact,  or  to  commend  a  statesman. 

HIS     EVIPEACHMEXT     OF     HAMILTON,     AXD     HIS     FALSIFICATION     OF 
lIISTOFaC   TRUTH. 

Of  Hamilton,  Mr.  Dawson,  in  his  introduction,  professes  to 
speak  with  admiration  and  respect;  but  his  very  compliments 
are  indictments.  On  page  19,  he  intimates  that  Hamilton,  as  a 
matter  of  expediency,  resolved  to  employ  the  press  "  for  the 
dissemination  of  sentiments,  which  he  hoped  would  counteract 
the  arguments  01  his  opponents  ;"  and  then  an  elaborate  scheme 
which  Mr.  Dawson  pretends  to  unfold  for  the  deceiving  and 
deluding  the  people  of  New  York  into  the  adoption  of  the 
Constitution,  he  attributes  to  what  lie  calls  "  the  tact  which 
formed  so  prominent  a  trait  in  Hamilton's  character."  But  it  is 
quite  clear,  that  if  Mr.  Dawson's  statements  are  correct,  Gen^ 
Hamilton  exhibited,  not  "  tact "  in  its  acceptable  sense,  but 
downright  knavery,  and  that  Mr.  Dawson,  while  eulogizing  his 
tact,  is  in  fact,  impeaching  his  integrity  and  his  honour. 

Of  the  Union  formed  by  the  present  Constitution,  Webster  said : 
"  It  had  its  origin  in  the  necessities  of  disordered  finance,  prostrate 
commerce,  and  ruined  credit,"  and  in  the  language  of  Curtis,  in 
his  able  work  on  the  Constitution,  speaking  of  our  condition 


29 

under  the  confederacy,  the  Union  was  "  feeble,  and  trembling  on 
the  verge  of  dissolution,"  and  the  Government,  utterly  inade- 
quate to  the  exigencies  of  a  great  empire,  without  funds  and 
without  credit,  was  unequal  to  the  task  of  preserving  the  prop- 
erty and  honor,  or  vindicating  the  rights  of  the  nation.  Disunion 
and  ruin  stared  the  country  in  the  face,  and  its  far-seeing  states- 
men viewed  the  probable  consequences,  in  case  the  Constitution 
should  fail  to  be  adopted,  with  profound  anxiety. 

Mr.  Dawson,  after  praising  the  acuteness  and  ability  of  the 
States'  Rights  leaders,  in  opposing  the  Constitution,  and  eulo- 
gizing their  "  powerfully  written  essays"  against  it,  and,  on  the 
•other  hand,  describing  the  Federalist  as  wanting  in  precision  in 
the  use  of  technical  terms,  and  disfigured  by  the  misfortune  of 
its  authors  being  hampered  by  their  training  under  British 
masters,  and  their  imperfect  knowledge  of  the  ancient  Republics} 
and  intimating  that  it  was  intended  to  disseminate  sentiments  in 
reply  to  arguments,  ventures,  with  singular  audacity,  to  confront 
the  great  facts  of  history,  to  deny  the  reality  of  the  evils  from 
which  the  country  was  suffering :  to  deny  that  the  derangement 
of  the  Federal  finances  was  the  legitimate  result  of  a  radical 
defect  in  the  articles  of  confederation  :  to  charge  that  "  the  stag- 
nation of  trade,"  which  he  represents  as  "  apparent "  and  not 
real,  was  "the  necessary  consequence  of  an  over  supply  of  goods 
and  of  an  undue  proportion  of  vendors  when  compared  with  the 
aggregate  of  the  population  ■"  and  to  aver  that  Hamilton,  with 
the  view  of  assisting  "  both  to  his  projected  condemnation  of  the 
•existing  Federal  system,  and  to  his  proposed  appeal  in  behalf  of 
the  new-  Constitution,"  resolved  that  the  existing  evils — that  is, 
the  derangement  of  the  Federal  finances,  and  the  apparent  stag- 
nation of  trade,  should  be  "  magnified  to  such  an  extent,  and 
presented  in  such  a  manner,  as  to  make  them  appear  as  the 
necessary  results  of  a  defective  form  of  Government."  (P.  xx.) 

We  will  stop  for  a  moment,  to  examine  this  all  important 
historical  question  of  the  condition  of  the  country  when  the  Con- 
stitution was  adopted,  in  regard  to  which  Mr.  Dawson  takes 
issue  with  the  statesmen  of  the  Revolution,  and  I  believe  with 
every  American  historian,  for  it  is  upon  this,  that  he  bases  the 
charge  of  perfidy  and  deception  against  the  friends  of  the  Con- 
stitution, and  against  Hamilton  as  their  leader. 


30 

In  Mr.  Dawson's  letter  to  Mr.  Motley,  according  to  his  friend, 
Mr.  Wright,  who  anticipated  from  its  publication  such  important 
advantage  to  the  cause  of  secession  and  rebellion,  and  who  be- 
speaks for  it  his  readers'  earnest  attention,  he — Mr.  Dawson — 
"demonstrates  our  immense  prosperity  at  that  time,"  and 
"  beyond  doubt,"  says  Mr.  "Wright,  who  evidently  trusts  to  Mr. 
Dawson  as  to  an  oracle  of  truth,  "  beyond  doubt  it  could  have 
been  said  of  us,  as  Moses  sang  of  the  Hebrews, — But  Jeshuran 
waxed  fat  and  kicked ;  thou  art  waxen  fat  that  has  grown  thick, 
thou  art  covered  with  fatness." 

In  his  introduction,  Mr.  Dawson,  with  milder  phrase,  but  with 
equal  significance,  charges  that  the  apparent  stagnation  of  trade 
was  not  owing  to  any  defect  in  the  government  of  the  Confed- 
eracy;  a: id  makes  these  two  assumptions,  first,  that  our  national 
prosperity  at  that  time  was  so  immense,  and  the  land  so 
covered  with  fatness,  that  overcome  by  an  excess  of  prosperity, 
we  kicked  liked  Jeshuran  ;  and  secondly,  that  whatever  appear- 
ance there  might  have  been  of  stagnation  of  trade — there  being 
no  such  stagnation  in  reality,  was  owing  to  temporary  and  local 
causes.  Upon  these  two  assumptions  rests  his  charge,  made  with 
some  degree  of  circumvolution,  it  is  true,  but  still  distinctly  made 
and  implied,  that  Hamilton  deliberately  misrepresented  and 
magnified  the  derangement  of  the  Federal  finances,  and  the 
apparent  stagnation  of  trade,  so  as  to  make  them  appear  as  the 
legitimate  result  of  a  defect  of  the  Articles  of  Confederation  ;  and 
the  conclusion  naturally  follows  that  Hamilton  and  his  i 
ciates  were  a  set  of  rogues,  that  their  opponents  were  the  only 
true  patriots,  and  that  the  American  people,  by  the  most  scan- 
dalous deception,  were  swindled  into  the  ratification  of  the  Con- 
stitution. 

It  would  be  impossible  to  open  the  volume  of  American 
history,  in  the  years  17SG,  '7,  and  '8,  without  finding  the  saddest 
proofs,  multiplying  and  accumulating,  until  the  most  sanguine 
of  the  revolutionary  statesmen  were  almost  in  despair,  of  evils, 
calamities,  and  disorders,  and  above  all  of  the  loss  of  public 
faith  and  rectitude,  that  were  fast  humbling  in  the  dust  the 
American  people,  at  the  very  time  when  Mr.  Dawson  would 
like  his  readers  to  believe  that  they  were  exulting  in  the 
immensity  of  their  prosperity — and  in  fact  kicking  from  a 
superfluity  of  fatness. 


31 

It  would  be  hardly  the  thing  to  quote  in  opposition  to  his 
grave  assertions,  the  explicit  testimony  of  Hamilton,  Madison, 
and  Jay,  or  any  other  of  the  men  of  the  Revolution,  of  whom, 
by  gentle  insinuations,  that  they  were  "  uncertain  "  patriots, 
"  unworthy"  members,  and  not  entitled  to  the  confidence  of  the 
people,  he  attempts  to  convey  an  idea  not  far  removed  from  that 
expressed  by  Mr.  Benton,  when  he  said  to  the  constituents  of  Mr. 
Petit — "  Your  Senator  is  a  great  liar  and  a  dirty  dog  :"  but  as 
thus  far  Washington  has  escaped  denunciation  at  the  hands  of 
Mr.  Dawson,  we  will  cpiote  one  or  two  from  the  multitude  of 
similar  testimonies  contained  in  the  private  correspondence  of 
the  Father  of  his  country,  and  they  will  show  at  the  same 
time,  the  reasons  he  had  for  regarding  State  sovereignty  as  a 
"  monster." 

To  Knox  he  wrote,  26  December,  17SG — "  I  feel,  my  dear 
General,  infinitely  more  than  I  can  express  to  you,  for  the  dis- 
order which  has  arisen  in  these  States.  Good  God  !  who  besides 
a  Tory  could  have  forseen,  or  a  Briton  predicted  them  ?" 

After  reading  the  account  given  by  Washington,  in  the  next 
extracts,  of  the  extent  of  these  disorders,  the  reader  will  be 
tempted  to  ask  "who  but  a  Tory  could  misrepresent,  or  a 
Briton  deny  them  ?" 

To  Madison  he  wrote : 

"  How  melancholy  is  the  reflection,  that  in  so  short  a  time 
.we  should  have  made  such  large  strides  towards  fulfilling  the 
prediction  of  our  trans-Atlantic  foes, — leave  them  to  themselves, 
and  their  government  will  dissolve.  *  *  Thirteen 

sovereignties  pulling  against  each  other,  and  all  tugging  at  the 
Federal  head,  will  soon  bring  ruin  on  the  whole." 

To  Knox,  ^5th  February,  1787,  lie  wrote : 
"Our  affairs  generally  seem  to  be  approaching  some  awful 
crisis.     God  only  knows  what  the  result  will  be." 

To  Lafayette,  15th  August,  1787: 

"The  present  Government  has  been  found  too  feeble  and  in- 
adequate to  give  that  security  which  our  liberties  and  property 


32 

render  absolutely  essential,  and  winch,  the  fulfillment  of  public 
faith  loudly  requires. 

"  Vain  is  it  to  look  for  respect  from  abroad,  or  tranquillity  at 
home ;  vain  is  it  to  murmur  at  the  detention  of  our  Western 
posts,  or  complain  of  the  destruction  of  our  commerce  ;  vain  arc 
all  the  attempts  to  remedy  the  evils  complained  of  by  Mr.  Demas, 
to  charge  the  interest  due  on  foreign  loans,  or  satisfy  the  claims 
of  foreign  officers,  the  neglect  of  which  is  a  high  impeachment 
of  our  national  character,  and  is  hurtful  to  the  feelings  of  every 
well  wisher  to  his  country,  in  and  out  of  it ;  vain  is  it  to  talk  of 
chastising  the  Algerines,  or  doing  ourselves  justice  in  any  other 
respect,  till  the  wisdom  and  force  of  union  can  be  more  concen- 
trated and  better  applied." 

"We  can  understand,  after  reading  this  letter,  the  significance 
of  the  language  used  by  the  Convention  which  framed  the  Con- 
stitution, in  submitting  their  work  to  Congress:  "In  all  our 
deliberations  on  this  subject,  we  kept  steadily  in  our  view  that 
which  appears  to  us  the  greatest  interest  of  every  true  American, 
the  consolidation  of  our  Union,  in  which  is  involved  our  pros- 
perity, felicity,  safety,  perhaps  oar  national  existence." 

Remembering  that  Mr.  Dawson,  according  to  Mr.  "Wright, 
has  discovered  that  we  are  "  all  wrong  about  the  theory  of  our 
Government,"  and  "  that  he  considers  the  word  '  nation '  should 
never  be  used  in  connection  with  the  United  States,  each  State 
being  the  only  nation ;"  it  is  perhaps  natural  enough  that  ho 
should  wish,  if  possible,  to  discover  new  facts  to  support,  in 
some  degree,  his  theory.  And  as  the  Dawson  theory  is  opposed 
to  that  of  Jay,  Marshall,  Story,  "Webster,  Curtis  and  Kent,  it  is 
not  extraordinary  that  the  Dawson  facts  adduced  to  support  it, 
should  be  plumply  contradicted  by  the  emphatic  testimony  of 
Washington. 

We  return  now  to  Mr.  Dawson's  introductory  sketch  and  his 
further  notice  of  the  plan  of  operations  concocted  by  Hamilton, 
for  persuading  the  people  that  the  Articles  of  Organization  were 
defective.  This  "  plan  of  operations,"  including,  as  we  have  seen, 
according  to  Mr.  Dawson,  the  perpetration  of  a  fraud  on  the 
people  by  unduly  magnifying  the  apparent  public  evils,  and 
falsely  presenting  them  as  d-ie  to  one  cause,  when  they  were 
really  due  to  another,  if  indeed  they  existed  at  all,  he  describes 


33 

as  "  well  calculated  to  produce  confusion  in  the  ranks  of  those 
<'  who  opposed  the  new  system,  and  to  shake  the  confidence 
«'  of  its  leaders,"  meaning  the  anti-constitutionalists ;  and  it 
"  needed,"  adds  Mr.  Dawson,  "  only  a  careful  elaboration  of  its 
"  details,  and  a  prompt  and  energetic  execution  of  its  different 
"  parts  to  insure  some  degree  of  success.  To  secure  these 
"  Colonel  Hamilton  appears  to  have  sought  the  assistance  of 
"  those  whose  peculiar  qualifications  adapted  them  to  the  dis. 
"  charge  of  peculiar  lines  of  duty,  reserving  to  himself,  however, 
"  not  only  the  general  control  of  the  discussion,  but  the  execu. 
"  tion  of  that  portion  of  it  which  ajDpears  to  have  been  attended 
"  with  the  greatest  difficulties." 

"Whether  the  parts  of  this  "plan  of  operations"  attended  with 
the  greatest  difficulties,  were  those  which  required  the  largest 
skill  and  audacity  in  invention  and  misrepresentation,  the 
greatest  coolness  in  moral  perjury,  and  the  widest  sconndrelism 
in  deceit,  is  left  to  the  imagination  of  the  reader;  but  this 
according  to  Mr.  Dawson,  was  the  damnable  scheme  to  mystify 
a  nation  and  deceive  a  people,  into  discarding  a  confederacy 
suited  to  their  wants,  and  adopting  a  constitution  inconsistent 
with  their  liberties,  which  Hamilton's  "  tact "  enabled  him  to 
inaugurate,  and  which,  as  the  head  manager,  he  carried  into 
execution,  employing  Jay  and  Madison  as  his  subordinates  and 
tools. 

Well  may  the  secessionists  of  Chicago  claim  Mr.  Dawson  as 
their  honored  ally,  and  point  to  his  edition  of  the  Federalist  as 
an  important  instrument  in  preparing  the  people  of  America  to 
subvert  a  constitution  so  fraudulently  imposed  upon  them. 

The  temper  and  object  of  Mr.  Dawson's  Introduction  may 
perhaps,  in  part,  be  gathered  as  much  from  what  is  omitted  as 
from  what  is  expressed.  In  the  first  place,  there  is  no  reference 
in  the  Introduction  to  the  large  influence  exerted  with  the 
American  people  in  favor  of  the  Constitution,  by  the  fact  that 
it  was  reported  to  Congress  by  Washington,  and  by  that  great 
man  warmly  recommended  for  adoption ;  nor  has  Mr.  Dawson 
ventured  directly  to  attack  the  patriotism  of  the  Father  of  his 
County.  Such  a  course  would  instantly  have  excited  alarm  ; 
but  it  is  attempted  to  be  shown  that  those  whom  Washington 


34 

loved  and  trusted  were  unworthy  of  confidence,  and  the  views 
which  they  held  in  common  with  Washington,  are  misrepresent- 
ed and  decried.  Even  in  his  reply,  Mr.  Dawson  ventures  a 
sneer  at  the  designation  of  States'  Eights  Sovereignty  as  a 
"  monster,"  although  he  knew  that  the  expression  was  from  the 
pen  of  "Washington. 

Washington  emphatically  declared  (Aug.  15,  1786),  "  Per- 
suaded I  am  that  the  primary  cause  of  all  our  disorders  lies  in 
the  different  State  Governments  and  in  the  tenacity  of  that 
power  which  pervades  the  whole  system." 

The  men  of  our  day  who  would  enlarge  the  sovereignty  of 
the  States,  at  the  expense  of  that  of  the  Xational  Go\  er.iment, 
however  much  they  may  profess  to  reverence  the  wisdom  of 
Washington,  are  setting  at  defiance  his  deepest  convictions  and 
most  earnest  counsels.  In  his  Farewell  Address,  which,  as  Mr. 
Horace  Binney,  Jr.,  has  recently  reminded  us,  he  did  not  date  at 
Philadelphia,  nor  at  Mount  Yernon,  hut  which  he  significantly 
signed  "  George  Washington,  United  States,  Sept.  17,  1796," 
he  solemnly  impressed  upon  the  American  people  that  "  the 
unity  of  government  is  a  main  pillar  in  the  edifice  of  your  real 
independence." 

Again,  Mr.  Dawson,  writing  of  the  birth  of  that  Constitution 
which  has  given  to  our  country  its  proud  place  among  the  na- 
tions— of  the  more  perfect  consolidation  of  that  Union  which  had 
existed  since  the  Declaration  of  Independence,  and  of  which  the 
enlightened  Emperor  of  Russia  recently  said  :  "  The  Union  has- 
exhibited  to  the  world  the  spectacle  of  a  prosperity  without  ex 
ample  in  the  annals  of  history,"  we  find  not  one  syllable. from 
Mr.  Dawson  of  eulogy  or  commendation ;  not  one  of  the  new 
vista  of  prosperity  and  happiness  which  it  opened  to  the  Ameri- 
can people,  and  which  might  have  continued  unbroken  for 
c  enuries  but  for  the  assaults  of  that  "monster,"  State  sov- 
ereignty. 

In  Madison's  Debates  is  preserved  a  pleasing  reminiscence  of 
Franklin,  which  might  probably  have  found  place  in  an  intro- 
duction to  the  Federalist  from  the  pen  of  one  who  believed  us 
to  be  a  nation. 

On  the  last  day  of  the  session  of  the  Convention,  when  the 
members  were  signing  the  engrossed  Constitution,  Dr.  Franklin, 


35 

looking  toward  the  President's  chair,  at  the  back  of  which  a  sun 
was  painted,  observed  to  the  person  next  him,  "  I  have  often 
and  often,  in  the  course  of  the  session,  and  the  vicissitudes  of 
my  hopes  and  fears  as  to  its  issue,  looked  at  the  sun  behind  the 
President,  without  being  able  to  tell  whether  it  was  rising  or 
setting;  at  length  I  have  the  happiness  to  know  that  it  is  a  ris- 
ing, and  not  a  setting  sun. 

On  the  20th  of  July,  1788,  Washington  wrote  to  Trumbull : 
"  We  may,  with  a  kind  of  pious  and  grateful  exultation,  trace 
the  linger  of  Providence  through  the  deep  and  mysterious  events 
which  first  induced  the  States  to  appoint  a  General  Convention, 
and  then  led  them,  one  after  another,  by  such  steps  as  were  best 
calculated  to  effect  the  object,  into  an  adoption  of  the  system 
recommended  by  the  Convention ;  thereby,  in  all  human  proba- 
bility, laying  a  lasting  foundation  for  tranquillity  and  happiness, 
when  we  had  to  much  reason  too  fear  that  confusion  and  misery 
were  coming  rapidly  upon  us." 

Mr.  Dawson,  presumptuously  assuming,  according  to  Mr. 
Wright,  that  we  were  "  all  wrong  about  the  theory  of  our  gov  - 
eminent,"  and  that  he  is  to  correct  the  errors  of  our  constitu- 
tional expounders,  the  well-known  authoritative  rulings  of  the 
Supreme  Court  of  the  United  States,  in  regard  to  the  character 
of  our  Constitution,  are  contemptuously  ignore:!.  The  object  of 
the  framers,  as  Mr.  Justice  Story  remarks,  was  to  substitute  a 
government  of  the  people  for  a  confederacy  of  States — a  consti- 
tution for  a  compact.  The  Constitution,  said  Chief  Justice 
Marshall,  was  ordained  and  established,  not  by  the  States  in 
their  sovereign  capacities,  but  emphatically,  as  the  preamble  of 
the  Constitution  declares,  by  the  people  of  the  United  States. 

"  The  sovereignty  of  the  nation,"  said  the  Supreme  Court,  by 
Jay,  Chief  Justice,  in  1793,  "  is  in  the  people  of  the  nation,  and 
the  residuary  sovereignty  of  the  State  in  the  people  of  the 
State." 

The  national  government,  according  to  Story,  adopting  the 
language  of  Webster,  is  as  popular,  and  just  as  much  emanating 
from  the  people  as  the  State  governments.  It  is  created  for  one 
purpose,  the  State  governments  for  another.  It  was  made  by 
the  people,  made  for  the  people,  and  is  responsible  to  the 
people. 


36 

The  language  of  the  Supreme  Court,  through  Chief  Justice 
Marshall,  in  the  case  of  McCullough  against  the  State  of  Mary- 
land, and  of  Chief  Justice  Taney,  in  the  case  of  Booth  against 
the  United  States,  is  to  the  same  effect,  and  in  each  case  the 
Court  was  unanimous.  It  is  true  that  the  people,  in  adopting 
the  Constitution,  acted  in  their  several  States ;  and  "  where 
else,"  asked  Chief  Justice  Marshall,  "  should  they  have  as- 
sembled ?  No  political  dreamer  was  ever  wild  enough  to  think  of 
breaking  down  the  lines  which  separate  the  States,  and  of  com- 
pounding the  American  people  into  one  common  mass.  Of  conse- 
cpience  when  they  act  they  act  in  their  States.  But  the  measures 
they  adopt  do  not  on  that  account  cease  to  be  the  measures  of 
the  people  themselves,  or  become  the  measures  of  the  State 
governments.  *  *  "  *  The  assent  of  the  States  in  their 
sovereign  capacity  is  implied  in  calling  a  Convention,  and  thus 
submitting  that  instrument  to  the  people.  But  the  people  were 
at  perfect  liberty  to  accept  or  reject  it,  and  their  act  was  final. 
It  required  not  the  affirmance  and  could  not  be  negatived  by  the 
State  governments.  The  Constitution,  when  thus  adopted,  was 
of  complete  obligation,  and  bound  the  State  sovereignties." 

From  that  time,  for  all  the  purposes  declared  by  the  Constitu- 
tion, the  people  of  the  United  States  were,  in  Mr.  Madison's 
words,  "  one  people,  nation,  or  sovereignty."  And  the  States 
having  been  shorn  of  the  attributes  of  sovereignty  which  the 
people  with  the  volunteered  assent  of  the  State  governments,  and 
by  their  own  sovereign  will,  had  conferred  upon  the  national 
government,  although  retaining  all  the  rights  of  sovereignty 
which  had  not  been  so  ceded  could  no  longer  be  regarded  as 
"  Sovereign  States  "  in  the  general  acceptation  of  the  word,  but 
as  States  bound  to  recognize  the  supreme  sovereignty  of  the 
National  Government  within  the  sphere  prescribed  to  it,  and 
bound  to  fealty  to  the  limitations  of  the  Constitution,  and  to  the 
rightful  jurisdiction  of  the-Supreme  Court.  The  Honourable 
Iieverdy  Johnson,  in  recently  alluding  to  the  doctrine  avowed 
by  the  rebel  leaders — the  doctrine  which  it  is  the  object  of  Mr. 
Wright's  volume  to  inculcate,  and  which  he  announces  that 
Mr.  Dawson's  notes  to  the  Federalist  will  materially  assist — 
that  the  only  true  sovereignty  is  that  which  belongs  to  the 
States  ;  expresses  his  conviction,  in  which  intelligent  and  loyal 


37 

men  will  concur,  that  "  there  never  was  a  greater  political 
heresy  ;  and  that  if  this  was  doubtful  before  the  war,  which  is 
now  desolating  that  section  and  carrying  distress  and  agony  into 
every  household,  it  is  demonstrated  to  be  as  fatally  ruinous  as  it 
is  unsound." 

It  is  difficult  to  conceive  that  any  man  with  a  spark  of  intelli- 
gence or  a  grain  of  patriotism  should  now,  in  view  of  the  fact 
that  this  heresy  of  "  State  sovereignty "  is  the  basis  of  the 
rebellion  which  is  shaking  the  Republic  to  its  foundation,  shed- 
ding our  dearest  blood,  wasting  our  resources,  and  subjecting 
us  to  insult  and  outrage  by  foreign  nations,  believe  that  he  can 
advocate  the  doctrine  of  "  State  sovereignty,"  without  becoming 
morally  guilty  of  aiding  and  abetting  the  plot  for  the  over- 
throw of  the  American  Republic,  and  of  assisting  in  the  slaughter 
of  the  armies  that  are  fighting  to  protect  the  honour  of  our 
national  flag  and  to  perpetuate  the  principles  which  it  symbolizes 
to  the  world. 

If  Mr.  Dawson  has  been  naturalized,  and  has  become  a  citi- 
zen, not  "  of  the  State  of  New  York,"  as  he  says,  but  of  the 
United  States  of  America,  it  is,  of  course,  a  pity  that  he  can 
make  no  better  return  to  the  country  which  has  so  highly 
honoured  him,  than  by  thus  attempting  to  defame  her  statesmen, 
to  misrepresent  her  history,  and  to  pervert  her  Constitution. 
One  would  suppose  that  the  experience  of  the  thirty  years,  dur- 
ing: which  he  has  shared  the  blessings  which  the  Constitution  has 
secured  to  the  American  people,  might  have  taught  him  that 
the  strongest  feeling  in  the  American  breast  is  that  of  National- 
ity, and  that  he  might  have  learned  during  the  last  three  years, 
if  he  never  learned  it  before,  that  when  the  question  of  national- 
ity arises,  true  Americans  of  all  parties  are  united ;  that  loyal 
Democrats  as  well  as  Republicans  hold  alike  to  the  resolve 
of  Jackson,  that  the  Union  must  and  shall  be  preserved  ;  that, 
whatever  our  differences  on  other  topics,  we  are  one  in  the  de- 
termination that  the  sovereignty  of  the  whole  people  of  the 
United  States,  and  the  unity  of  our  great  Republic  shall  be  main- 
tained from  the  St.  Johns  to  the  Rio  Grande,  from  the  Lakes 
to  the  Gulf,  and  from  the  Atlantic  to  the  Pacific ;  and  that  we 
will  tolerate  no  interference  with  that  sovereignty  from  any 
quarter,  foreign  or  domestic,  and  certainly  not  from  that  ex- 


38 

eeedingly  small  class  of  Englishmen,  who,  admitted  to  the  privi- 
vileges  of  American  citizenship,  deny  to  the  United  States  the- 
right  to  be  called  a  nation,  and  who  attempt  to  strengthen  the 
arguments  of  our  European  opponents,  by  playing  the  part  of 
Jackal  to  the  British  Lion,  and  second  fiddle  to  the  London 
Times. 

Least  of  all  are  the  loyal  American  people,  at  this  moment,. 
and  in  regard  to  this  rebellion,  in  a  humor  to  tolerate  any  want 
of  frankness. 

If  Mr.  "Wright  correctly  represents  Mr.  Dawson's  views — and 
no  indictment  for  libel  has  been  found  against  him,  for  mis- 
representation,— Mk.  Dawson  might  properly  have  announced 
in  advance  his  discovery  that  "  we  were  all  wrong  in  our  theory 
of  government" — that  "  the  word  nation  should  never  be  used  in 
connection  with  the  United  States,"  and  that  his  notes  on  the 
Federalist  would  il  be  found  coincident  with  the  views"  taken  by 
the  author  of  "  citizenship  sovereignty." 

Had  such  an  announcement  been  made,  or  had  he  simply 
adopted  as  the  motto  of  his  edition  the  language  of 
his  Chicago  friend,  and  placed  upon  his  title  page 
the  words  "  The  Constitution  of  the  United  States  !  tear 
it  in  shreds!  trample  it  in  the  dust!!  damn  it  to  everlast- 
ing infamy ! ! !"  he  would  certainly  have  escaped  all  possible 
imputation  of  having  solicited  subscriptions  under  false  pre- 
tences ;  and  if  he  had  thereby  admitted  himself  an  ingrate  to 
the  country  that  had  received  him,  and  a  traitor  to  the  flag  he 
had  sworn  to  support,  he  might  yet  have  commanded  a  certain 
sort  of  respect,  as  one  who  manfully  avowed  his  real  sentiments, 
and  bravely  accepted  the  responsibility.  A  Southern  member 
of  Congress,  who  was  once  referred  to,  on  the  floor  of  the  house, 
as  "  an  incarnate  fiend,*'  replied  that,  "  if  he  was  a  devil,  lie  was 
not  a  mean,  sneaking  devil ;"  but  the  right  to  indulge  in  such 
a  boast  presupposed  qualities  which  are  not  conspicuous  in  the 
behaviour  of  this  editor  of  the  Federalist  towards  the  gentlemen 
whose  countenance  he  sought,  to  give  character  to  his  edition. 
The  language  in  which  he  refers  to  Jay,  both  in  his  Introduc- 
tion and  in  his  letter,  contrasts  so  strangely  with  that  in  which 
he  solicited  my  assistance,  as  almost  to  entitle  the  promise  and 
its  fulfillment  to  aplace  among  the  Curiosities  of  Literature.    "  I 


39 

am  actuated  entirely,"  was  his  language  on  the  lTtli  February, 
1SG2,  when  asking  assistance,  "by  a  desire  to  render  justice  to 
the  memory  of  your  ancestor." 

"  *  *  It  will  be  your  duty  and  mine,"  he  publicly  writes,  on 
the  22d  February,  1864,  after  the  assistance  he  sought  had  been 
rendered,  "  to  examine  your  grandfather,  both  as  a  man,  a  pro- 
fessor of  religion,  and  a  politician  ;  as  a  British  subject,  and  as 
a  citizen  of  an  independent  republic  ;  as  a  friend  and  supporter 
of  the  Royal  Colonial  government  in  New  York,  and  as  an  open 
and  untiring  opponent  of  popular  rights  in  America;  as  a  mem- 
ber of  '  Popular  Committees,'  of  Provincial  Congresses,  of 
State  Conventions  and  of  Continental  Congresses  ;  as  an  active 
opponent  of  '  independence '  in  the  Continental  Congress  of 
1770,  and  as  its  spasmodic  supporter,  after  twelve  of  the  thirteen 
colonies  had  become  '  free  and  independent  States,'  in  the  Pro 
vincial  Congress  of  New  York  ;  as  the  secret  opponent  of  Frank- 
lin in  the  formation  of  the  treaty  of  1783,  as  the  nominal  friend 
and  supporter  of  that  treaty  at  the  time  of  its  execution,  and  as 
the  first  of  those  who  had  signed  it,  subsequently  to  repudiate 
its  terms ;  as  '  Publius,'  and  as  the  open  opponent  of  '  Pub- 
lius's'  sentiments ;  as  one  of  the  authors  of  the  Federalist,  and 
yet  not  an  advocate  of  the  proposed  Constitution ;  in  short,  as 
the  earnest  and  consistent  advocate  of  a  concentration  of  politi- 
cal power  in  the  few,  of  whom  he  should  always  he  one,  and  the 
equally  earnest  and  consistent  opponent  of  the  political  equality 
of  the  many,  of  whom  he  shoidd  never  oe  one.'''' 

The  assault  upon  the  fame  of  Hamilton,  if  somewhat  less 
indecent  in  its  language,  is  equally  scurrilous  and  truthless,  and 
the  descendants  of  those  statesmen,  for  vindicating  their  memo- 
ries from  such  abominable  falsehoods,  are  thus  answered  : 

"  Both  alike  fear  the  result  of  an  honest,  earnest,  and  inde- 
pendent exposition  of  the  truth.  Each  of  you  is  more  or  or 
less  a  pretender  ;  each  has  endeavored,  in  his  own  way,  to  en- 
velope his  family  with  a  "  glory  "  which  shall  rival  that  which 
is  said  to  surround  the  heads  of  the  saints ;  each,  like  another 
sorcerer,  has  succeeded  only  in  raising  a  smoke,  with  which  ho 
hopes  to  deceive  the  spectators,  and  secure  for  himself  and  his 
family  the  veneration  of  the  world." 


40 

Perhaps  no  further  reply  would  have  been  needed  to  the  mis- 
representations of  the  Introduction  than  these  brief  quotations 
exhibiting  the  tone  of  this  editor  of  the  Federalist ;  but  the 
revelations  made  by  Mr.  "Wright,  who,  it  is  proper  to  say,  pro- 
fesses a  profound  veneration  for  the  Revolutionary  statesmen 
whom  Mr.  Dawson  has  devoted  himself  to  defame,  seemed  too 
important  to  be  overlooked  in  their  relation  to  the  pending 
efforts  to  weaken  the  moral  power  of  the  National  Government, 
and  to  encourage  the  belief  that  it  has  no  right  to  exercise  a  na- 
tional sovereignty,  and  that  our  country  cannot  properly  be 
called  a  nation. 

On  the  assumption  that  the  Introduction  was  the  work  of 
one  who  appreciatcdthe  wisdom  and  had  imbibed  the  spirit  of  the 
Federalist,  who  listened  reverently  to  the  counsels  of  Washing- 
ton, and  clung  to  the  nationality  over  whose  birth  he  presided, 
the  tone  and  statements  of  the  Introduction  were  an  unexplained 
enigma.  But  the  moment  the  author  is  disclosed  as  an  English- 
man who  denies  our  nationality,  who  is  announced  as  one  who 
has  discovered  that  we  are  "  mistaken  in  our  theory  of  govern- 
ment," and  that  our  Justices  of  the  Supreme  Court,  from  Jay  to 
Taney,  were  ignorant  of  the  first  principles  of  constitutional  law, 
as  one  who  asserts  our  immense  prosperity  when  the  Constitu- 
tion was  adopted,  and  who  has  "a  rod  in  pickle"  for  Mr.  Mot- 
ley for  daring  to  differ  from  the  London  Times,  the  moment 
these  sympathies  are  disclosed,  the  American  who  runs  may 
read  the  whole  meaning  of  the  Introduction  :  and  the  fitness  of 
this  editor's  maligning  Putnam  and  Duane,  and  Livingston,  and 
Hamilton,  and  Jay,  and  of  his  intimating  that  the  Constitution 
was  fastened  on  the  people  by  political  trickery  and  fraud  is 
perfectly  apparent.  The  "  monster "  character  of  this  edition 
of  the  Federalist  is  found  out,  and  henceforth  it  takes  its 
place  in  our  literary  history  as  a  notable  feature  of  this  era  of 
rebellion. 

It  will,  of  course,  be  a  subject  of  mortification  to  the  gentle- 
men who  have  been  deceived,  ami  the  exposure  will  be  a  warn- 
ing to  Historical  Societies  how  they  allow  themselves  to  be  used 
in  advancing  that  rebel  doctrine  of  State  sovereignty,  which  has 
proved  itself,  as  Washington  anticipated,  the  pretence  for  trea- 
son, and  which  now  endangers  "  our  national  existence."     Little 


41 

blame,  however,  can  fairly  attach  to  those  who  have  supposed, 
until  they  had  read  carefully  his  Introduction,  that  this  editor 
of  the  Federalist  was  a  supporter  of  American  nationality.  He 
came  possessed,  as  he  declared  of  copies  of  the  family  papers  o* 
Jay  and  Hamilton,  and  they  were  approached  in  as  innocent  a 
guise  as  that  assumed  by  the  pirates  of  Jeff.  Davis,  when  they 
shipped  as  passengers  on  board  the  Chesapeake.  And  this 
brings  me  to  a  point  involving  an  interesting  question  of  fact 
upon  which  I  have  a  word  to  offer  in  reply  to  Mr.  Daweon. 

QUESTION  OF  FACT  ABOUT  TUE  FAMILY  PAPERS  OF  JAY. 

Mr.  Dawson  says :  "  You  say  concerning  the  family  papers  of 
Jay,  relative  to  the  Federalist,  '  I  (you)  gave  you  (me)  none 
such ;'  and  on  that  slight  foundation  you  assume  that  I  have  had 
no  such  '  family  j>apers  of  Jay,'  at  any  time  past  or  ^re&ent, from 
any  other  person,  and  by  inuendo  you  accuse  me  of  falsehood 
and  deceit.  If  it  will  gratify  you,  I  will  admit,  as  I  do  admit 
that  I  have  not  received  from  you  at  any  time  any  paper  what- 
ever '  relative  to  the  Federalist  per  se,  except  the  original  drafts 
of  number  LXIII  (these  were  discovered  in  a  bundle  of  ancient 
newspapers  after  the  volume  was  printed) ;  but  you  must  admit 
that  I  never  said,  even  in  the  '  Prospectus,'  which  you  have 
quoted  from,  that  you  had  given  any  such  papers  to  me  at  any 
time ;  and  you  must  also  admit,  if  you  are  not  a  willing  slan- 
derer, that  the  only  foundation  for  your  insinuation  has  been 
your  own  disordered  imagination.  Indeed,  I  challenge  you  to 
produce  a  single  specimen  of  '  Prospectus,'  '  Advertisement,'  or 
any  other  publication,  either  by  myself  or  my  publisher,  wherein 
it  is  stated,  either  by  me  or  for  me,  that  you  had  given  me  such 
'  family  papers  of  Jay,'  as  you  have  described,  or  any  other." 

In  this  paragraph  Mr.  Dawson  makes  two  points : 

1.  He  attempts  to  vindicate  the  truth  of  his  assurance  to  the 
public,  that,  in  the  preparation  of  the  Federalist,  he  had  been 
favoured  with  copies  of  the  family  papers  relative  thereto  of 
Chief  Justice  Jay,  by  giving  the  public  now  to  understand 
that  although  he  had  received  no  such  papers  from  me,  he  had 


42 

received  them  at  some  time  or  other  from  some  other  person  or 
persons. 

2.  He  insists  that  my  assumption,  that  he  could  have  had  no 
such  papers,  because  I  had  given  him  none  such,  rests  upon  a 
"  slight  foundation  " — that  its  only  foundation  was  my  "  disor- 
dered imagination,"  and  he  challenges  me  to  produce  a  line 
from  himself  or  his  publisher  in  support  of  my  assumption  that 
he  had  indicated  me  as  the  source  whence  he  received  the 
papers. 

In  reply  to  this  second  point,  I  quote  the  entire  paragraph 
from  his  prospectus,  of  which  he  twice  quotes  only  the  first  sec« 
tion,  ending  with  "  Chief  Justice  Jay,"  each  time  carefully 
omitting  the  last  paragraph,  which  does  indicate  the  source  of 
the  favor.  I  mark  the  section  quoted  by  him  No.  1,  and  the 
section  omitted  No.  2. 

(No.  1.)  "  In  the  preparation  of  this  edition  of  the  Fede- 
ralist, the  subscriber  has  been  favored  with  copies  of  the  family 
papers  relative  thereto  of  General  Hamilton  and  Chief  Justice 
Jay ;  (No.  2)  and  has  also  the  pleasure  to  announce,  through 
the  farther  courtesy  of  Hon.  James  A.  Hamilton  and  John  Jay, 
Esq.,  original  portraits  of  Messrs.  Hamilton  and  Jay,  for  the 
illustration  of  the  work." 

I  understood  "  the  further  courtesy"  of  Mr.  James  A.  Hamil- 
ton and  myself  in  furnishing  portraits,  to  imply  that  it  was 
through  o\\v  previous  courtesy  that  Mr.  Dawson  had  been  fur- 
nished with  copies  of  family  papers.  I  submit  that  that  is  the 
plain  meaning  of  the  passage,  that  the  construction  of  the  sen- 
tence justifies  no  other  interpretation,  and  that  his  own  language 
in  the  prospectus  refutes  the  idea  he  now  wishes  to  impress 
upon  the  public  that  he  never  intimated  that  he  had  received 
such  papers  from  me.  I  entirely  disbelieve  his  present  intima- 
tion that  he  has  copies  of  the  family  papers  of  Jay  relative  to 
the  Federalist  per  se  which  have  been  given  to  him  by  some 
person  or  persons  other  than  myself,  and  there  are  one  or  two 
facts  bearing  on  this  point  in  reply  to  his  charge  that  my  sus- 
picion that  he  has  no  such  papers  rests  on  a  "  slight  foundation," 


43 

and,  indeed,  solely  on  my  "  disordered  imagination."  The  will 
of  Chief  Justice  Jay  contained  this  item  : 

"  I  give  and  bequeath  all  my  manuscript  books  and  papers, 
other  than  such  as  respect  my  own  estate  or  the  estate  of  others, 
to  my  two  sons,  Peter  A.  Jay  and  William  Jay,  jointly,  and  not 
to  he  divided.  On  the  death  of  one  of  my  sons,  these  manu- 
scripts are  to  belong  solely  and  absolutely  to  the  survivor." 

Mr.  Peter  A.  Jay  died  first,  and  the  papers  which  had  re- 
mained at  Bedford,  in  my  father's  possession,  then  belonged 
solely  to  him,  and  by  his  will,  he  gave  them  to  me.  They  have 
been  kept  together  and  not  divided.  Thinking  it  barely  pos- 
sible that  a  few  papers  might  have  by  chance  remained  in  the 
hands  of  Mr.  Peter  A.  Jay,  and  have  been  given  to  Mr.  Dawson 
by  his  son,  John  C.  Jay,  Esq.,  of  Rye,  I  inquired,  and  was  in- 
formed by  Mr.  Jay  that  he  had  no  papers  of  Chief  Justice 
Jay,  and  that  he  did  not  know  Mr.  Dawson. 

I  know,  from  a  conversation  with  my  father  about  the 
Federalist,  that  he  knew  of  no  papers  of  Jay  relating  to  the  work, 
and  if  such  manuscripts  or  copies  of  manuscripts  exist,  furnished 
to  Mr.  Dawson,  as  he  intimates,  by  some  "  other  person,"  at 
some  "  time  past  or  present,"  I  know  not  why  I  should  not 
repeat  "  Produce  the  papers  !" 

Nor  am  I  disposed  to  acquiesce  in  the  propriety  of  his  not 
producing  them,  on  the  plea  that  he  has  ceased  to  lay  stress  upon 
them  in  his  advertisements,  and  that  he  finds  them  comparative- 
ly unimportant.  His  language  on  this  point  is,  "  As  my  facili- 
ties for  acquiring  information  concerning  the  Federalist  were 
increased  from  time  to  time,  I  became  myself  satisfied  of  the 
comparative  unimportance  of  the  family  papers  of  Jay  and 
Hamilton  relating  to  the  Federalist  per  se,  and  I  discontinued 
my  references  to  them  as  deserving  of  special  notice." 

Whether  this  subsequent  discovery  of  the  little  value  of  the 
papers  was  the  only  reason  for  discontinuing  his  references  to 
them,  or  whether  that  discontinuance  was  owing,  in  part  at 
least,  to  Mr.  James  A.  Hamilton's  declaring  that  there  were  no 
such  papers  of  his  father  as  the  prospectus  announced,  and  in- 
sisting that  the  announcement  should  be  suppressed,  I  shall  not 
stop  to  inquire :  but  the  passage  I  have  quoted  from  Mr.  Daw- 
son's reply  will  not  satisfy  the  public  with  the  non-production 


44: 

of  the  papers,  for  the  question  now  is,  not  of  their  "  comparative 
unimportance,"  but  of  their  actual  existence. 

Mr.  Dawson  has  had  the  temerity  to  charge  me  with  having 
a  "disordered  imagination,"  and  with  being  guilty  of  slander 
because  I  intimated  that  he  was  mistaken  in  supposing  that  he 
had  any  copies  of  family  papers  of  Jay  relative  to  the  Federalist. 
He  assures  the  public  that  he  has  such  papers — not  received 
from  me,  as  he  distinctly  intimated  in  his  prospectus,  but  from 
some  other  person,  and  he  intimates  that  he  has  examined  them 
at  least  twice ;  once,  before  he  announced  in  his  prospectus  that 
he  had  been  favored  with  such  papers,  which  he  then  regarded 
as  important,  and  again,  after  his  facilities  for  information  had 
increased,  when  he  decided  that  they  were  of  comparative  un- 
importance, and  discontinued  the  reference  to  them  in  his 
prospectus. 

These  "  copies  of  family  papers" — he  mentions  them  in  the 
plural,  so  that  there  was  more  than  one — have  become  matter  of 
profound  historic  interest,  apart  from  their  bearing  on  Mr.  Daw- 
son's veracity.  Who  gave  to  Mr.  Dawson  these  copies  ?  who 
has  the  originals  ?  and  where  did  the  person  or  persons  get  the 
originals  ?  Seventy-six  years  have  elapsed  since  the  Federalist 
Mas  written,  and  here  are  family  papers  of  Jay  respecting  the 
Federalist,  per  se,  of  which  his  family  never  heard,  discovered 
just  in  time  to  be  useful  to  Mr.  Dawson  in  his  prospectus,  dis- 
closed to  him  alone,  not  communicated  by  him  to  me,  notwith- 
standing the  courtesies  I  had  extended  to  him  might  seem  to  have 
entitled  me  to  so  simple  a  requital :  suddenly  discovered  by  Mr. 
Dawson  to  be  comparatively  unimportant,  after  the  prospectus 
had  accomplished  its  object,  and  no  longer  announced  either  by 
him  or  his  publisher,  not  quoted  in  the  text,  nor  as  yet  referred 
to  in  foot  notes.  So  far  as  their  historic  value  is  concerned,  ac- 
cording to  Mr.  Dawson,  they  spring  up  in  a  night,  and  wither 
in  a  day.  But  he  still  insists  upon  their  reality;  he  represents 
them  as  tangible  and  visible,  and  he  intimates  that  none  but  a 
disordered  imagination  could  suppose  that  his  statement  was 
baseless  as  a  dream. 

Mr,  Dawson,  however  will  see,  or,  at  all  events,  those  who 
read  this  correspondence  will  see,  that  nothing  but  the  produc- 
tion of  the  alleged  papers,  and  the  disclosure  of  the  person  or 


45 

persons  from  whom  he  professes  to  have  received  them,  will 
satisfy  his  subscribers  that  lie  ever  received  copies  of  any  family 
papers  of  Jay  relative  to  the  Federalist.,  from  any  person  other 
than  myself,  and  that,  as  he  admits,  he  received  no  such  papers 
from  me,  the  assertion  that  he  has  such  papers  in  his  possession 
is  entirely  erroneous. 

EXPOSURE    OF    ME.    DAWSON    BY    HON.    JAMES    A.    HAMILTON. 

Mr.  Dawson,  in  his  reply  to  my  first  letter,  in  which,  alluding 
to  his  claim  that  lie  possessed  "  copies  of  family  papers  relative 
to  the  Federalist,  "  I  had  said,  "the  sons  of  Hamilton  knew  of 
no  such  papers  of  their  father,"  intimated  that  I  was  his  sole 
accuser,  and  that  "Mr.  Hamilton,  the  respected  second  son  of 
General  Hamilton,  had  read  that  portion  of  the  proof  sheets  of 
the  advertisement  to  which  I  had  alluded,  ivithout  suggesting 
any  change  whatever  in  the  portion  to  which  I  objected,"  and 
added,  "  he  has  subsequently  been  pleased  to  approve,  in  the 
kindest  and  most  gratifying  terms,  my  entire  volume  as  it  has 
been  given  to  the  public,  and  my  whole  course  as  its  editor,  with- 
out the  least  exception" 

Here  are  two  distinct  averments  voluntarily  proffered  by  Mr. 
Dawson : 

1.  That  Mr.  James  A.  Hamilton  suggested  no  change  in  that 
part  of  the  advertisement  to  which  I  had  alluded,  and, 

2.  That  Mr.  Hamilton  had  approved  of  the  entire  volume, 
and  of  Mr.  Dawson's  whole  course  as  its  editor,  without  the  least 
■exception. 

To  these  declarations  Mr.  Hamilton  has  responded  in  the 
Evening  Post,  in  a  letter  dated  April  7,  1864,  in  which,  in  refu- 
tation of  the  first  statement,  he  quotes  a  letter  addressed  by  him 
to  Mr.  Dawson,  on  the  31st  July,  1863,  desiring  him  to  strike 
his  (Mr.  Hamilton's)  name  from  the  advertisement,  because  he 
had  given  him  no  such  advice  or  assistance  as  to  authorize  such 
a  notice,  and  because  he  did  not  choose  to  be  considered  in  any 
respect  responsible  for  a  work  which  he  had  not  examined. 


46 

Mr.  Hamilton  quotes  also  a  letter  he  had  sent  to  Mr.  Dawson 
on  the  20th  September,  1862,  in  which  he  said : 

"Your  prospectus  is  received.  I  regret  to  find  in  it  this 
statement :  '  In  the  preparation  of  this  edition  of  the  Federalist, 
the  subscriber  has  been  favored  with  copies  of  the  family  papers 
relative  thereto  of  General  Hamilton.'  I  have  no  knowledge 
of  any  family  papers  of  General  Hamilton,  and  did  not  favor 
you  with  any  copies  of  such  papers.  My  brothers  and  friends 
know  such  papers  do  not  exist." 

In  answer  to  the  charge  that  Mr.  Hamilton  had  approved  of 
Mr.  Dawson's  course  as  an  editor,  without  the  least  exception,. 
Mr.  Hamilton  quotes  from  the  same  letter,  in  which  he  declared 
hedid  not  choose  to  be  considered  in  any  respect  responsible  for 
the  work,  v  hich  he  had  not  examined. 

*  *  *  "I  observe,  with  regret,  that  your  introduction 
bears  hardly  upon  Mr.  Duane,  &c." 

Mr.  Hamilton  remarks  that  he  has  since  read  that  part  of  the 
introduction  relating  to  his  father's  strategy,  in  which  Hamilton 
is  represented  "  as  a  mere  politician,  deliberately  uttering  con- 
scious sophistries  and  absolute  untruths,  for  the  purpose  of  cheat- 
ing the  people  into  a  course  of  action  that  should  serve  his  selfish 
ends,  and,  thereby,  his  party;"  and,  with  natural  indignation 
that  Mr.  Dawson  should  have  asserted  that  he  approved  of  this 
with  the  rest  of  his  volume,  he  exclaims : 

"  Surely,  even  the  slightest  respect  for  a  father's  memory 
would  not  permith  such  an  assertion  to  pass  unnoticed." 

Mr.  Hamilton,  after  alluding  to  Jay's  wisdom,  foresight,  fair- 
ness, and  patriotism,  and  to  the  confidence  reposed  in  him  by 
"Washington  and  his  contcinporories,  declares:  "It  is  impossible 
that  I  should  have  approved  the  groundless  strictures  upon  his 
conduct  and  character."  After  a  well  deserved  and  scorching 
rebuke  of  that  taste  for  calumny  which  "  will  go  mousing  about 
the  scurrilous  publications  of  our  country  during  the  period  of 


47 

our  ferocious  party  conflicts"  for  atrocious  libels  on  the  wisest, 
purest,  and  most  patriotic  men  of  the  time,  he  refers  to  the  lies 
of  one  of  Mr.  Dawson's  predecessors  in  this  dirty  work — "  An 
English  hired  calumniator" — one  Callender,  who,  in  a  work 
published  in  1800,  sneered  at  the  extravagant  popularity  posses- 
sed by  "  this  citizen,"  Washington,  and  accused  him  of  being 
twice  a  traitor  and  a  robber  of  his  army,  with  as  much  coolness 
as  his  successor  and  fellow-Briton,  Mr.  Dawson,  now  vents  his 
ghoul  like  spite  upon  the  fame  of  Putnam,  Livingston,  Duane, 
Hamilton,  and  Jay.  The  thanks  of  the  country  are  due  to  Mr. 
Hamilton,  for  his  complete  exposure  of  the  various  falsehoods 
whose  utterance  had  compelled  him  to  come  before  the  public,  in 
vindication  alike  of  his  own  conduct  and  of  his  great  father's 
memory,  in  spite  of  his  advanced  age,  when  controversy  becomes 
a  burthen,  and  of  a  recent  domestic  sorrow,  in  which  a  wide 
circle  has  deeply  sympathised.  His  calm,  clear,  and  convincing 
statement  of  facts,  convicts  Mr.  Dawson  of  a  degree  of  bad  faith, 
which,  but  for  the  positiveness  of  the  proof,  would  seem  almost 
incredible,  towards  a  venerable  gentleman  who  had  honoured  him 
with  friendly  attentions  :  and  whose  generous  confidence  he  has 
basely  betrayed,  first  by  calumniating  the  father,  and  then  by 
giving  the  country  to  understand  that  these  calumnies  were  ap- 
proved of  by  the  son.  Mr.  Dawson  sought,  in  his  advertise- 
ment, to  convey  a  similar  impression  with  regard  to  myself,  and 
to  make  tha  world  believe  that  I  had  furnished  him  with  family 
papers  that  might  be  supposed  to  justify  his  mendacious  charges 
against  my  grandfather. 

paw  son's  renewed  charges  against  jay,  and  their  refutation* 

In  my  first  letter,  unadvised  of  the  object  of  his  misrepresen. 
tations,  I  gently  pointed  out  some  of  his  more  notable  blunders^ 
referring  him,  in  several  cases,  to  the  positive  proof  of  their  un- 
truth. Among  others,  I  showed  him  that  his  averment  that 
Jay's  earlier  conduct  caused  distrust  and  dissatisfaction ;  that  he 
was  not  looked  to  by  the  people  for  counsel  or  leadership  in 
regard  to  the  Constitution,  but  was  regarded  by  a  majority  of 
his  fellow-citizens  as  selfish,  aristocratic,  and  impracticable ;  was 
signally  and  thoroughly  refuted  by  the  vote  of  the  city  of  New 


48 

York  electing  liim,  at  the  very  time  referred  to,  to  the  State 
Convention,  by  a  majority  of  twenty-eight  to  one  ;  and  by  the 
fact  that  in  that  Convention,  Jay  was  selected  to  move  the  adop- 
tion of  the  Constitution ;  and  again,  to  draft  the  "  Circular  let- 
ter "  to  the  States,  recommending  the  adoption  of  the  proposed 
amendments,  which  received  the  unanimous  approval  of  the 
body,  and  secured  the  cordial  acquiescence  of  the  people  of  this 
State  in  the  relinquishment  of  the  Articles  of  Confederation, 
and  the  establishment  of  a  National  Constitution  by  the  united 
voice  of  the  whole  people. 

In  hrs  reply,  Mr.  Dawson,  with  a  fatuity  which  would  be  sur- 
prising, had  his  behaviour  towards  Mr.  Hamilton  left  room  for 
surprise  at  any  degree  of  persistence  in  mis-statements,  again 
asserts  that  Jay  was  "  not  an  advocate  of  the  proposed  Consti- 
tution." 

In  case  this  persistence  should  lead  any  one  to  suppose  that 
there  is  a  shadow  of  truth  in  the  charge,  I  will  quote  a  para- 
graph or  two  from  Mr.  Webster's  elaborate  letter  to  citizens  of 
Westchester,  to  which  I  have  already  alluded,  in  which  he  dwelt 
at  length  on  Jay's  devotion  to  the  Constitution,  and  quoted 
largely  from  his  writings  in  its  behalf : 

"  Gentlemen,"  said  Mr.  "Webster,  after  an  eloquent  eulogium 
on  Hamilton,  "  the  mortal  remains  of  another  great  man,  vener- 
ated and  loved  through  the  whole  course  of  a  long  life,  repose  in 
the  county  of  Westchester ;  of  course,  I  mean  John  Jay.  The 
public  life  of  this  illustrious  man  was  almost  wholly  devoted  to 
the  preservation  of  the  States,  the  establishment  of  the  Con- 
stitution, and  the  administration  of  the  powers  conferred  by  it. 
No  man  saw  more  clearly,  or  felt  more  deeply,  the  evils  arising 
from  the  existence  of  States  with  entire  avid  distinct  sovereignties. 
No  man  appealed  to  his  countrymen  against  such  a  state  of 
things  with  more  earnestness,  eloquence,  or  power.  *  *  He 
foretold  its  dangers,  and  did  as  much  as  any  man  to  secure  the 
public  opinion  from  its  pernicious  grasp." 

Advised  by  Mr.  Wright's  volume  that  Mr.  Dawson's  edition 
of  the  Fed*  ralist  and  the  volume  with  notes  that  is  to  follow  it, 
is  relied  upon  to  aid  in  resuscitating  at  the  North  the  Itebel 


49 

doctrine  of  State  Sovereignty,  that  he  denies  that  the  United 
States  constitute  a  nation,  and  insists  that  each  State — South 
Carolina  for  instance — is  a  separate  nation  :  and  that  his  Chicago 
associates,  who  claim  him  as  an  earnest  and  effective  ally  in 
their  scheme,  are  striving  to  trample  the  Constitution  in  the 
dust,  and  are  prepared,  if  necessary,  to  join  themselves  "  with 
the  armies  of  the  South,"  and  inaugurate  war  upon  Northern 
soil,  against  all  loyal  citizens  ;  learning  Mr.  Dawson's  advocacy 
of  that  "monster"  State  Sovereignty,  it  is  clear  that  the  fierce- 
ness of  his  assaults  on  Jay  is  induced  not  by  the  pretended  fact 
that  he  was  opposed  to  the  Constitution,  but  by  the  historic  fact, 
so  clearly  stated  by  Mr.  Webster,  that  to  no  man  was  the  country 
more  indebted  for  the  establishment  of  the  Constitution,  and  that 
no  man  more  early  or  more  effectively  opposed  the  assumed  right 
of  the  States  to  override  the  sovereignty  of  the  people.  Whether 
as  a  legislator  or  as  Chief  Justice,  Jay  uniformly  maintained  the 
doctrine — then  as  now  denied  by  the  opponents  of  our  nation- 
ality— that  "  the  only  true  source  of  sovereignty  is  the  People." 
The  further  fact  stated  by  Mr.  Webster,  and  confirmed  by  the 
testimony  of  the  living  and  the  dead,  that  Jay  was  "  venerated 
and  beloved  through  the  whole  course  of  a  long  life,"  seems  to 
have  afforded  to  Mr.  Dawson  a  provocation  to  attribute  to  him 
qualities  that  would  forbid  all  idea  of  such  veneration  and  affec- 
tion, and  impair  at  once  the  regard  of  youthful  and  unenlight- 
ened readers,  for  his  character,  his  abilities,  his  influence,  and 
his  position. 

The  task  is  one  which  Mr.  Dawson  would  have  found  diffi- 
cult to  accomplish,  even  if  his  own  views  had  not  been  discovered. 
As  it  is,  the  malignant  hatred  he  exhibits  towards  Jay,  I  accept 
as  the  most  fitting  homage  which  can  be  paid  to  his  memory  by 
an  Englishman,  who,  declaring  that  his  own  "  grandfather  was  an 
honest  English  laborer,"  would  subvert  the  nationality  of  the 
Republic  in  whose  preservation  are  involved  the  hopes  of  honest 
labourers  of  England  and  the  world  over ; — of  a  foreigner,  who, 
sheltered  by  our  flag,  and  educated  in  our  schools,  repays  the 
debt  by  attempting  to  pervert  the  American  Constitution,  join- 
ing himself  with  the  London  Times  and  aristocratic  sympathi- 
zers with  rebellion,  to  destroy  the  unity  of  our  Republic,  and 
bjot  our  country  from  the  roll  of  nations. 


50 

Long  before  the  instinctive  conviction  of  Washington  and  Jay  , 
in  regard  to  the  danger  with  which  the  doctrine  of  State  Sover- 
eignty threatened' the  American  people,  had  been  verified  as  it 
now  is,  by  the  most  detestable  rebellion  recorded  in  history,  and 
while  loyal  Democrats  still  looked  with  doubt  and  displeasure 
on  the  national  doctrines  held  by  the  framers  of  the  Constitution, 
which  have  since  been  approved  by  the  supreme  judiciary,  and 
incorporated  with  our  common  law — one  of  the  very  warmest  oi 
Jay's  political  and  personal  foes,  James  Monroe^  (according  to 
his  eulogizer,  John  Quincy  Adams,)  in  the  zenith  of  public 
honour,  and  in  the  retirement  of  his  latter  days,  "left,  recorded 
with  his  own  hand,  a  warm  and  unqualified  testimonial  to  the 
pure  patriotism,  the  prominent  ability,  and  the  spotless  integrity 
of  John  Jay."  When  such  was  the  feeling  towards  Jay  in  the 
calm  evening  of  life,  on  the  part  of  one  who  had  been  his  active, 
earnest,  and  prejudiced  opponent, — and  a  similar  testimonial  is 
said  to  have  been  paid  to  him,  after  a  long  period  of  separation, 
by  his  early  friend  and  subsequent  rival,  Chancellor  Livingston  : 
— we  need  not  wonder  at  the  bold  language  used  by  that  accom- 
plished scholar  and  elegant  writer,  Gulian  C.  Verplanck,  in 
his  often-quoted  eulogy  on  Jay  : 

"  A  halo  of  veneration  seemed  to  encircle  him  as  one  belong- 
ing to  another  world  while  yet  lingering  among  us.  When  the 
tidings  of  his  death  came  to  us,  they  were  received  through  the 
nation,  not  with  sorrow  or  mourning,  but  with  solemn  awe,  like 
that  with  which  we  read  the  mysterious  passage  of  ancient 
Scripture — And  Enoch  walked  with  God,  and  he  was  not,  for 
God  took  him." 

OUR   PRESENT    POSITION,    AND   Till;   COMBINATIONS    AGAINST   US. 

One  advantage,  and  it  is  not  a  slight  one,  which  we  derive 
from  the  disclosures  made  by  the  frank  volume  of  Mr.  Wright, 
and  his  political  literary  coadjutors,  among  whom  Mr.  Dawson 
is  so  prominently  introduced,  is  a  more  accurate  knowledge  of 
our  position.  We  learn  from  their  own  pens  the  real  sympathies 
and  designs  of  these  "  Federal  Republican  "  citizens,  alias  State- 
Rights  Democrats,  who,  in  their  assaults  upon  American  nation- 


51 

ality,  their  distortion  of  American  jurisprudence,  their  falsifica- 
tion of  American  history,  and  their  shameless  libels  upon 
American  statesmen,  are  found  to  be  sympathizers  with  slavery 
and  rebellion,  the  last  friends  of  British  aristocracy,  and  the 
earnest  allies  of  the  London  Times. 

The  same  men  who,  under  pretence  of  maintaining  State 
Rights,  consign  to  infamy  the  American  Constitution,  and 
threaten  to  unite  with  the  rebels  and  devastate  the  loyal  North, 
are  the  men  who  declare,  "Let  the  nobility  of  England  under- 
stand that  they  have  in  us,  earnest  coadjutors  to  maintain  aris- 
tocracy ;"  and  they  rightly  feel  that  any  step  in  this  direction  is 
hopeless,  unless  they  can  impair  the  feelings  of  American  na- 
tionality, by  destroying  the  reverence  of  the  people  for  the  men 
who  assisted  at  the  birth  of  the  nation,  who  proclaimed  its  fun- 
damental principles  in  the  Declaration  of  Independence — who 
rescued  it  from  the  dissolution  threatened  by  the  imbecility  of 
the  Confederation,  and  established  its  unity  and  strength  by  our 
National  Constitutipn. 

The  effect  of  that  Constitution  in  consolidating  the  power  of 
the  American  people,  was  at  the  time  duly  appreciated  by  the 
sagacious  statesmen  of  Europe,  and  when  Genet  came  to  us  as 
minister  from  the  "  French  Republic,"  he  submitted  to  our 
Government  official  documents  disclosing  the  unfriendly  views 
which  had  been  entertained  by  Yergennes  and  Montmorin  to- 
wards the  United  States,  manifesting  in  plain  terms  the  solici- 
tude of  France  and  Spain  to  exclude  the  United  States  from  the 
Mississippi,  their  jealousy  of  the  growing  power  and  ambition 
of  this  country,  and  the  wish  of  France,  expressed  while  the 
question  was  pending,  that  the  Constitution  might  not  oe  adopted, 
as  it  suited  France  that  the  United  States  should  remain  in  their 
present  state,  because  if  they  should  acquire  the  consistency  of 
which  they  were  susceptible,  they  would  soon  acquire  a  force  or 
a  power  which  they  would  be  very  ready  to  abuse."'"" 

Notwithstanding  the  careful  avoidance  by  the  United  States 
for  seventy  years  of  all  meddling  with  the  affairs  of  Europe,  and 
the  recognition,  as  an  American  principle,  of  the  non-interven- 
tion recommended  by  Washington,  we  have  found  that  aristo- 

*See  note  on  "Tub  Policy  of  Fkancu  towards  tub  United  States,"  in  the  Appendix. 


52 

c:\atic  England  is,  from  the  real  or  supposed  exigencies  of  its 
position,  the  inevitable  foe  of  the  American  Republic,  express- 
ing frankly,  in  view  of  our  supposed  dissolution,  the  fears  it  has 
entertained  of  our  rising  greatness.  They  saw  in  lis,  according 
to  the  London  Times,  "  a  great  empire  that  had  threatened  to 
predominate  over  all  mankind,"  and  for  a  little  while  they 
exultingly  believed  that  we  were  shattered  into  fragments.  It 
is  not  to  be  supposed  that  they  will  view  with  satisfaction  the 
re-establishment  of  our  national  unity,  or  that  they  will  forget, 
in  our  case,  the  maxim  which  England  so  well  understands, 
— divide  and  conquer. 

Immense  disappointment  has  been  created  by  the  views  and 
the  conduct  of  the  British  aristocracy,  British  statesmen,  and 
British  authors :  with  such  notable  exceptions  as  the  Duke  of 
Argyle  and  Lord  Carlisle,  Richard  Cobden,  and  John  Bright, 
]\Iill  and  Xewnian,  and  Eorster,  and  others,  whose  names  will 
be  always  remembered  with  honour  as  men  who  ros3  to  the 
dignity  of  the  occasion,  and  remembered  their  duty  to  humanity 
and  to  God.  But,  however  great  has  been  our  disappoint- 
ment at  the  low  and  narrow  view  of  the  American  question 
taken  by  the  higher  classes  in  England,  or  however  modified  that 
disappointment  has  been  by  the  wider  instincts  and  broader 
sympathies  of  the  working  classes,  in  the  efforts  of  the  American 
people  to  maintain  against  the  assaults  of  slavery,  liberty,  na- 
tionality and  law,  the  fact  remains  that  we  have  calmly  ac- 
cepted the  situation ;  we  recognize  the  inexorable  fact  that  our 
late  is  in  our  own  hands ;  we  have  had  a  bitter  foretaste  of  the 
treatment  that  awaits  a  divided  people,  and  we  realize  the 
truth  that  there  is  no  end  to  the  insults,  and  no  depth  to  the 
humiliation  which  we  may  expect,  not  alone  from  England,  but 
from  every  nation  in  Christendom,  unless  we  re-establish  the  pres- 
tige of  our  Republic,  by  maintaining  the  integrity  of  our  borders, 
the  supremacy  of  our  Government,  and  the  honour  of  our  flag. 

It  is  not  the  part  of  wisdom  to  undervalue  the  significance  of 
hostile  and  simultaneous  lvovements  on  account  of  the  insignifi- 
cance of  the  tools  employed,  nor  in  our  contempt  for  the  infamy 
of  the  workmen,  to  overlook  the  dangers  with  which  their  masters 
threaten  us.    To  those  accustomed  as  we  are,  to  contemplate 


53 

with  pride,  the  intelligence,  the  patriotism,  and  the  common 
sense  of  the  American  people,  it  may  at  first  seem  unreasonable 
to  suppose  that  men  who  murder  the  Queen's  English,  can  do 
the  least  harm  to  the  American  Constitution :  or  that  book-worms, 
burrowing  amid  the  rubbish  of  the  party  by  whom  that  Consti- 
tution was  opposed  in  its  infancy,  can  aid  the  faction  that  would 
subvert  it  in  its  strength,  by  resuscitating  for  the  benefit  of  the 
Tories  of  to-day,  the  libellous  abortions  that  struggled  and  died  in 
the  last  century 

But  the  fact  is  not  to  be  forgotten  that  each  is  doing  his  own 
particular  part  in  a  grand  conspiracy  against  American  nation- 
ality, "  and  that  like  grains  of  gunpowder"  to  borrow  an  image 
from  Coleridge,  "  although  each  by  itself  be  smutty  and  con- 
temptible, their  combined  force  may  be  terribly  destructive." 

In  this  conspiracy  are  arrayed  against  us  not  simply  the  rebels 
of  the  South,  bent  upon  the  establishment  of  a  slave  empire, 
headed  by  crafty  and  desperate  leaders,  guided  by  officers  edu- 
cated by.  ourselves,  who  have  violated  their  honour  and  betrayed 
their  flag,  and  backed  by  a  misguided  army  of  determined 
bravery ;  but  the  aristocracy  of  England,  who  having  thrown 
away  the  friendship  of  this  great  nation,  with  a  folly  as  great  as 
that  by  which  their  ancestors  estranged  and  lost  their  most 
loyal  colonies,  now  see  in  the  success  of  Republican  government 
the  decay  of  their  order  and  the  prostration  of  their  power.  To 
these  must  be  added  the  despotism  of  France,  presently  to  be 
represented  on  our  continent  by  an  Arch-Duke  of  Austria,  whose 
very  presence  on  the  throne  of  Mexico,  guarded  by  French 
bayonets  against  the  reluctant  people  he  comes  to  govern,  will 
be  of  itself  an  insult  to  our  country  that  will  rankle  in  the 
breast  of  every  true  American.  Last  of  all,  to  aid  these  foes  ot 
our  Republic  in  the  South,  in  Britain,  in  France,  and  in  Mexico, 
appears  an  anti-constitutional  party  in  the  North,  with  Democ- 
racy and  State  Sovereignty  for  their  battle-cry,  equally  bent 
with  our  aristocratic,  our  monarchial,  and  our  imperial  enemies 
upon  the  destruction  of  our  nationality — a  party,  whose  wealthy 
members  in  this  metropolis  supply  funds  for  circulating  per- 
versions of  history  and  travesties  of  religion :  whose  ideas  of 
patriotism  and  honour  allow  men  assuming  to  be  gentlemen  to 
approach  with  supple  knees  a  British  minister,  and  solicit  in  our 


54 

domestic  affairs  foreign  intervention :  who  as  3ure  of  their  sym- 
pathy and  support  the  British  aristocracy,  even  while  they  are 
chuckling  over  the  exploits  of  British  iron-clads  in  sweeping  from 
the  seas  American  merchant-ships  and  transferring  our  commerce 
to  British  bottoms :  who  volunteer  assistance  to  the  "  London 
Times"  in  its  malignant  assaults  upon  our  national  integrity, 
and  distort  facts  to  sustain  its  unsupported  arguments :  and  who, 
when  they  forget  their  caution,  raise  their  traitorous  voice  against 
the  American  Constitution,  calling  on  the  people  to  tear  it  into 
shreds,  and  consign  it  to  eternal  infamy.  From  the  citations 
already  given,  the  reader  can  decide  for  himself  how  far  the 
man  who  now  advocates  the  "  monster  "  and  rebel  doctrine  of 
State  Sovereignty,  in  defiance  of  the  constitutional  adjudications 
of  the  Supreme  Court,  aids  and  abets  the  wide  spread  conspiracy 
against  American  nationality ;  and  how  far  it  is  possible  for 
one  who  denies  that  nationality,  under  colour  of  history  to  falsify 
the  truth,  and  under  pretence  of  enlightening  the  world  by  re- 
producing the  wise  counsels  of  the  Federalist,  to  rake  the  ashes 
of  the  Revolution  for  libels  on  its  authors,  and  issue  to  an 
unsuspecting  people  the  immortal  volume  of  Hamilton,  Madison 
and  Jay,  prefaced  by  insinuations,  infamously  false,  against  the 
purity  of  their  patriotism  and  the  worthiness  of  their  fame. 
I  am,  Sirs, 

Respectfully  your  obedient  servant, 

JOHN  JAY. 
119  Madison  Avenue, 

New  York,  April  14,  1864. 


APPENDIX 


{Note  to  page  51.) 


The  Policy  of  France  towards  the  United  States. — This  quotation  is 
from  a  note  in  the  5th  volume  of  Marshall's  Life  of  Washington,  and  the 
important  fact  it  discloses  proves,  beyond  all  question,  the  soundness  of 
Jay's  views  (in  1783)  touching  the  policy  of  the  French  Court,  which  he  had 
had  the  opportunity  of  studying  for  years  during  his  residence  in  Spain,  at  a 
Court  then  closely  allied  to  France,  and  governed,  like  France,  by  a  Prince 
of  the  House  of  Bourbon.  It  proves,  also,  the  wisdom  and  propriety  of  his 
resolve  in  negociating  the  Treaty  of  Paris  to  disregard  the  positive  instruc- 
tions of  Congress,  "  to  undertake  nothing  in  the  negociation  for  a  peace  or  a 
truce  without  their  (the  Ministers  of  the  King  of  France)  concurrence;"  and 
"  ultimately  to  govern  yourself  by  their  advice  and  opinion."  This  humilia- 
ting instruction  had  been  dictated  to  Congress  by  the  diplomatic  representa- 
tive of  France,  and  accepted  by  a  majority  of  its  members  with  an  unbounded 
confidence  in  the  disinterested  friendship  of  that  Court,  that  redounds,  per- 
haps, rather  to  their  amiable  confidingness  of  disposition  and  unlimited  sense 
of  gratitude  to  France,  than  to  the  sternness  and  exclusiveness  of  their 
regard  for  the  honour,  rights  and  interests  of  the  Republic. 

The  first  advice  given  by  France,  under  these  instructions,  decided  promptly 
the  course  of  Jay.  The  British  Cabinet  wished  to  compel  the  negociators 
to  treat  not  on  equal  terms,  as  the  ministers  of  one  independent  na- 
tionality, but  as  individuals,  not  even  named  in  the  British  Commission, 
representing  the  several  thirteen  colonies  or  plantations  of  America.  By  an 
acquiescence  in  this,  the  American  negociators  would  have  admitted  themselves 
to  be  British  subjects,  who,  after  having  for  seven  years  claimed  to  be  a  free 
and  independent  people,  were  at  last  obliged  humbly  to  acknowledge  that 
their  Independence  was  still  a  subject  of  negociation,  and  that  its  recognition 
was  a  boon  to  be  granted  by  Great  Britain  as  an  article  of  treaty. 

The  French  Court,  by  Vergennes,  instead  of  sustaining  the  demand  of  Jay 
for  a  new  and  proper  Commission,  was  found  by  him  to  have  interfered 
through  Mr.  Fitzherbert,  to  prevent  the  British  Cabinet  from  treating  us  as  an 
Independent  nation;  and  then  Jay,  assured  that  the  interests  of  our  Republic 


u 


required  that  the  treaty  should  not  be  framed  by  an  ally  so  regardless  of  her 
honour,  announced  hid  views  to  the  British  Minister  with  such  determi- 
nation and  address,  as  to  induce  the  British  Cabinet  to  issue  a  proper  Com- 
mission ;  and  thus  was  given  to  the  statesmen  of  bath  nations,  who  even 
then  anticipated  the  early  dissolution  of  our  Confederacy,  their  first  lesson  in 
that  fundamental  principle  which  they  find  it  so  difficult  to  comprehend,  that 
it  is  not  for  transatlantic  powers  to  disturb  the  unity,  to  check  the  growth,  or 
to  direct  the  destiny  of  the  American  Republic. 

Freed,  by  the  resolution  of  Ja}^,  from  all  further  interference  by  Vergennes, 
with  whom  no  further  communication  was  had  on  the  treaty  until  the  pro- 
visional articles  had  been  signed,  the  American  negociators  were  enabled  to 
attend  simply  to  our  own  national  interests,  and  to  secure  the  boundaries  and 
the  fisheries  without  being  hampered  by  the  claims  of  Spain  to  the  one,  or 
of  France  to  the  other. 

The  English,  freed  from  the  malign  influence  of  France,  were  persuaded  to 
yield  to  us  the  boundaries  which  they  had  claimed  for  Canada — the  Ohio  on 
the  South,  extending  due  west  to  the  Mississippi,  including  all  the  lakes,  Ohio, 
Indiana,  Illinois,  Michigan,  and  the  North-west.  The  claims  of  Spain,  as 
set  forth  a  little  further  South  by  M.  D'Aranda,  at  the  suggestion,  according 
to  "Washington,  of  the  Court  of  Fiance,  to  boundaries  commencing  on  the 
North  "  at  the  confluence  of  the  Ohio  and  the  Renhawah.  and  running  round 
the  Western  shores  of  Erie,  Huron,  and  Michigan,  to  Lake  Superior,"  were 
as  summarily  laid  aside  ;  and  our  young  Republic,  which  commenced  the  nc- 
gociation  by  refusing  to  treat  except  on  the  footing  of  an  independent  na- 
tionality, emerged  from  the  European  Congress  with  a  diplomatic  prestige 
that  was  yet  more  increased,  when  the  large  advantages  gained  by  her  nego- 
ciators, by  their  manly  frankness  and  unassisted  skill,  were  compared  with 
the  slender  concessions  that  the  trained  diplomatists  of  France  and  Spain  suc- 
ceeded in  extorting  from  the  Court  of  England. 

"  The  treaty,"  says  the  author  of  the  Diplomacy  of  the  United  States,  "  was 
exceedingly  favorable  and  honourable  to  America,  and  was  negociated  by  the 
Commissioners  with  uncommon  address." 

The  difference  of  view  in  regard  to  the  disinterestedness  of  the  friendship 
professed  for  us  by  France,  on  the  part  of  Jay  and  Adams  on  the  one  side, 
and  of  Franklin  on  the  other,  altho'  it  did  not  prevent  the  venerable 
philosopher  from  following  the  lead  of  his  more  youthfid  colleague,  has  in- 
duced an  earnest  and  persistent  effort  on  the  part  of  the  biographers  and 
eulogists  of  Franklin  to  prove  that  Jay  was  unreasonably  suspicious  and 
altogether  mistaken :  and  that  he  deserved  censure  for  not  deferring  to  the 
suggi  i 'lines,  and  allowing  him   to  approve  of  the  form  of  the 

Commission,  and  to  decide  the  question  of  the  fisheries  and  the  boundaries. 

It  is  singular  that  in  this  discussion,  in  which  Dr.  Jared  Sparks  has  borne 
so  prominent  a  part,  and  in  which  his  assurance  that  he  had  examined 
official  documents   in   London   and  Paris   which    proved  the  good  faith  of 


Ill 

France,  (Mr.  Sparks'  note,  vol.  8,  Diplomatic  Correspondence,  p.  208,)  has 
been  accepted  by  maay  as  conclusive :  that  the  fact  has  been  so  entirely 
ignored  that  the  whole  question  engaged  the  attention  of  Washington,  and 
received  at  his  hands  and  that  of  his  Secretary  of  State,  Mr.  Pickering,  the 
most  careful  and  thorough  investigation. 

I  refer  to  the  letter  addressed  by  Mr.  Pickering  to  Mr.  Pinckney,  our  newly* 
appointed  Minister  to  France,  in  reply  to  the  complaints  and  reproaches  of  M. 
Adet,  the  Minister  from  the  French  Republic.  It  was  communicated  to  Con- 
gress by  President  Washington,  by  special  message,  on  the  19th  Jan.,  1797; 
and  may  be  found  in  the  1st  volume  of  American  State  Papers,  pp.  G59-57G. 

After  quoting  largely  from  the  observations  of  the  Court  of  France  on  the 
justicative  memorial  of  the  British  Government  vindicating  the  war  it  in- 
tended to  wage  against  France,  in  which  France  admitted  that  her  only  object 
in  entering  into  engagements  with  us,  after  she  regarded  our  independence  as 
secured  by  the  defeat  of  the  army  of  Bourgoyne,  was  to  diminish  the  British 
power,  to  advance  her  own  interest,  and  secure  her  own  safety:  the  Secretary 
reviewed  the  conduct  of  the  French  Ministers  in  our  negotiations  for  peace, 
and  the  effort  of  M.  Vergennes  to  induce  the  American  negociators  to  con- 
sent to  treat  under  a  British  Commission,  in  which  neither  the  United  States 
nor  their  commissioners  were  named — in  which  case,  pending  the  negeciation, 
"  they  would  have  been,"  said  the  letter,  "  not  independent  citizens,  but,  by 
our  own  acknowledgment,  British  subjects.  *  *  The  honour  of  an  inde- 
pendent nation  forbade  their  treating  in  a  subordinate  capacity."  The  Secre- 
tary goes  on  to  shew  the  reasons  why  France  wished  the  American 
negociators  so  to  act;  and  why  France,  having  formed  other  connections,  with 
whose  views  we  had  no  concern,  we  were  not  bound  to  postpone  the  offered 
peace.  He  referred  to  a  combination  of  facts  and  circumstances  which  had 
satisfied  the  American  Government  that,  in  facilitating  our  independence  of 
Great  Britain  — "  leaving  the  King  master  of  the  terms  of  peace" — the  mani- 
fest object  of  certain  measures  of  the  French  Court  was  to  deprive  the  United 
States  of  an  immense  Western  Territory,  of  the  Navigation  of  the  Mississippi, 
and  of  the  Fisheries,  except  on  our  own  coast. 

Referring  to  our  negociations  with  Spain,  the  Secretary  said — "  It  is  certain 
"  that,  originally,  Spain  made  no  pretensions  to  any  line  eastward  of  the 
«'  Mississippi,  to  the  northward  of  the  Floridas,  and  it  is  clear  that  the  idea 
"  of  her  finally  making  the  claim  was  suggested  by  the  Court  of  France." 

"  We  are  now  prepared,"  he  adds,  "  to  understand  the  declarations  made 
"in  the  instructions  to  Citizen  Genet,  Minister  Plenipotentiary  from  the 
"  French  Republic  to  the  United  States.  These  instructions  are  dated  the  4th 
"of  January,  1793,  and  were  published  in  December  of  that  year,  in  Phila- 
delphia, in  vindication  of  his  extraordinary  measures  which  had  induced 
"our  Government  to  desire  his  recall.  In  these  instructions  we  find  the  fol- 
lowing passages:  'The  Executive  Council  has  called  for  the  instructions 
''given  to  Citizen  Genet's  predecessors  in  America,  and  has  seen   in   them 


IV 

«'  with  indignation,  that  at  the  very  time  the  good  people  of  America  ex- 
pressed their  gratitude  to  us  in  the  most  feeling  manner,  and  gave  us  every 
''proof  of  their  friendship,  Vergennes  and  Montmorin  thought  that  it  was 
"  right  for  France  to  hinder  the  United  States  from  taking  that  political  sta- 
"hility  of  which  they  were  capable;  because,  they  would  soon  acquire  a 
"strength  which  it  was  probable  they  would  be  eager  to  abuse.'       *         * 

"  '  The  same  Machiavellian  principle  influenced  the  operations  of  the  war  for 
"  independence  ;  the  same  duplicity  reigned  over  the  negotiations  for  peace! 

"  We  see,  then,"  continued  the  Secretary,  "  that  in  forming  connections 
"  with  us  in  1788,  the  Court  of  France,  the  actual  organ  of  the  nation,  had  no 
"  regard  to  the  interests  of  the  United  States  :  but  that  their  object  was,  by 
"  seizing  the  occasion  of  dismembering  the  British  Empire,  to  diminish  the 
''  power  of  a  formidable  rival,  and  that  when  after  we  had  carried  on  a  dis- 
"  tressing  war  for  seven  years,  the  great  object  for  which  we  had  contended — ■ 
"  Independence — was  within  our  reach,  that  Court  endeavoured  to  postpone 
"  the  acknowledgment  of  it  by  Great  Britain,  and  eventually  to  deprive  us  of 
"  its  fairest  fruits — a  just  extent  of  Territory,  the  Navigation  of  the  Missis- 
"  sippi,  and  the  Fisheries. 

"  Such  being  the  motives  and  conduct  of  France,  what  inspired  our  truly 
"  grateful  sentiments  to  that  nation  ?  *  *  We  were  engaged  in  a  common 
•'  cause  against  Great  Britain — we  received  loans  of  money — we  were  as- 
"  sisted,  by  troops  and  ships,  in  attacking  the  common  enemy  in  the  bosom 
':  of  our  country,  and  this  association  in  war  produced  acquaintance,  which 
''became  friendship ;  and  experiencing  these  benefits,  we  gave  way  to  our 
';  feelings  without  enquiry  into  the  motives  from  which  they  wTere  rendered." 

The  despatch  has  the  additional  value  of  exhibiting  the  clear,  calm,  convic- 
tions of  Washington,  which  were  approved  also  by  Hamilton,  after  the  lapse 
of  thirteen  years. 

Washington's   letter  to  Mr.  Pinckney  (4th  Jan.,  1797),  while  the  despatch 
was  in  progress,  exhibits  the  strongest  anxiety  that  it  should  be  unexception- 
able and  unanswerable,  for  the  reason  that  "if  there  be  the  least  ground  fo 
"  it,  we  shall  be  charged  with  unfairness,  and  an  intention  to  impose  on  and 
"  to  mislead  the  public  judgment." 

"  Hence,  and  from  a  desire  that  the  statement  may  be  full,  fair,  calm,  and 
"  argumentative — without  asperity,  or  anything  more  irritating  in  the  com. 
"  ments  thau  the  narrative  of  facts  which  expose  unfounded  charges  and 
"  assertions,  does  itself  produce,  I  have  wished  that,  the  letter  to  Mr; 
"  Pinckney  may  be  revised  over  and  over  again.  Much  depends  on  it,  as  it 
"  relates  to  ourselves,  and,  in  the  eyes  of  the  world,  whatever  may  be  tho 
"  effect  as  it  respects  the  governing  powers  of  France." 

It  is  more  than  probable  that  the  official  documents  submitted  to  our  Govern- 
ment by  Genet,  and  which  so  strongly  aroused  the  indignation  of  the  French 
Directory,  were  not  among  those  submitted  in  Paris  to  Dr.  Sparks'  scrutiny - 
since  proofs  that  carried  such  firm  conviction  to  the  calm  mind  of  Washing- 
ton could  hardly  have  been  passed  over  by  his  biographer  without  tho 
slightest  notice  ;  and  yet  I  am  not  aware  that  Dr.  Sparks  has  ever  even  re- 


ferred,  in  this  connection,  to  the  very  extraordinary  disclosures  of  Genet,  nor 
to  the  use  made  of  them  by  Washington  in  triumphantly  vindicating  our  Re- 
public from  the  charge  of  ingratitude. 

The  unfortunate  blunder  into  which  Dr.  Sparks  seems  to  have  permitted 
himself  to  fall,  and  which  I  doubt  not  he  will  be  the  first  to  regret,  by  assum- 
ing to  decide  so  grave  a  question,  involving  the  honour  of  American  diplo- 
matist?, upon  the  strength  of  documents  exhibited  to  him  in  Europe,  strangely 
overlooking  the  unanswerable  official  proofs  (embodied  in  our  own  diplomacy) 
gathered  from  the  French  archives  by  the  French  Directory,  and  discovering 
beyond  all  possibility  of  doubt  the  duplicity  of  Vergennes,  is  a  blunder  that 
to  this  clay  is  being  perpetuated  in  works  claiming  to  be  historic,  and  made 
the  basis  of  the  most  unworthy  slanders  both  in  America  and  in  Europe. 

The  comments  of  Mr.  Parton,  in  his  recent  Life  of  Franklin,  where  he  relies 
confidingly  and  complacently  on  Dr.  Spark's  assurances  about  the  documents 
he  examined  abroad,  ignoring  equally  with  Dr.  Sparks  the  positive  proofs  so 
strangely  brought  to  light  by  the  French  Revolution,  and  communicated  to 
Washington  by  Genet,  have  their  counterparts  in  the  charges  of  Mr.  F.  C. 
Schlosser,  the  author  of  a  History  of  the  Eighteenth  Century,  translated  from 
the  German  by  D.  Davison,  M.A.,  and  published  at  London  in  1845. 

On  the  297th  page  of  the  fifth  volume,  Mr.  Schlosser,  after  stating  that 
Franklin  wished  to  delay  the  settlement  of  the  preliminaries  "  out  of  gratitude 
to  France,"  but  "he  was  overruled  by  Jay  and  Adams,  and  the  latter  signed 
the  treaty"  (Mr.  Schlosser's  language  implies  that  Franklin  did  not  sign  it) 
"  without  even  asking  Vergennes,  to  whom  America  owed  so  much;"  the 
author  refers  to  the  very  advantageous  terms  obtained  by  the  American  nego- 
tiators in  "  regard  to  territory  beyond  the  Blue  Mountains,  where  the  most 
flourishing  provinces  and  towns  now  are," — an  extent  of  territory  far  beyond 
what  had  been  expected  in  America — "  as  well  as  in  regard  to  ports,  islands, 
and  the  right  of  fishing,"  and  remarks — slandering  in  one  breath  the  Republic 
and  its  Commissioners — "according  to  the  universally  received  proposition  in 
"  America,  that  the  principal  end  of  human  wishes  is  and  ought  to  be  the 
"  greatest  wealth  and  external  advantage,  the  American  lawyers  Jay  and 
"  Adams  behaved  very  properly  in  opposing  their  colleague  Franklin.  The 
u  American  quibblers  invented  a  word  to  avoid  that  condition  in  their  treaty 
"  with  France,  according  to  which  they  were  not  to  sign  any  preliminaries 
"  until  France  had  clone  the  same.  They  called  the  articles  on  which  they  had 
"  agreed  provisional  articles.  Franklin's  most  recent  biographer  has  plainly 
u  asserted  what  Franklin  only  hints  at  in  his  letters,  that  he  by  no  means  ap- 
"  proved  of  the  ruse  by  which  Messrs.  Jay  and  Adams  deceived  the  French 
"  ministry." 

As  it  was  expressly  stipulated  by  the  provisional  articles,  that  the  prelimi- 
naries agreed  upon  in  Paris  by  the  American  and  English  negotiators,  should 
not  be  signed  until  the  English  and  French  had  come  to  terms  at  Versailles, 
the  charges  of  quibbling  and  chicanery,  based  upon  the  language  of  Dr. 
Sparks,  lead  back  directly  to  the  question,  how  far  the  good  faith  of  France 
towards  the  United  States  justified  the  commissioners  in  disobeying  the  in- 


VI 

structions  of  Congress,  to  defer  in  everything  to  French  advice ;  and  upon  this 
point  the  testimony,  but  little  known,  of  Lord  St.  Helens,  who,  as  Mr.  Fitz- 
herbert  had  been  commissioned  by  England  to  treat  at  that  time  with  the 
European  powers,  may  be  worth  referring  to.  I  quote  from  the  N.  Y.  Re- 
view,  vol.  ix.,  pp.  306-7.  The  memoranda  of  Lord  St.  Helens  were  addressed 
to  Sir  George  Rose,  in  returning  the  volumes  of  Jay's  Life  and  Letters. 

"  These  memoirs  are  indeed  highly  deserving  of  further  attention  on  both 
"  sides  of  the  Atlantic,  and,  as  you  justly  foresaw,  particularly  interesting  to 
"  myself,  from  my  intimate  acquaintance  with  Mr.  Jay,  when  we  were  re- 
"  spectively  employed  at  Paris,  in  1782 ;  and  I  can  safely  add  my  testimony 
"  to  the  numerous  proofs  afforded  by  these  memoirs,  that  it  was  not  only 
"  chiefly  but  solely  through  bis  means  that  the  negotiations  of  that  period 
"  between  England  and  France  were  brought  to  a  successful  conclusion." 

After  referring  to  the  British  official  discussion  with  France  touching  the 
French  Fisheries,  Lord  St.  Helens  added : 

"But  in  the  course  of  their  discussion,  M.  de  Vergennes  never  failed  to  insist 
"  on  the  expediency  of  a  concert  of  measures  ~bdv:een  France  and  England,  for 
"  the  purpose  of  excluding  the  American  Stales  from  these  fisheries,  lest  they 
"  should  become  a  nursery  for  seamen."  The  New  York  Review,  in  a  note,  to 
show  that  it  was  well  understood  at  the  time  that  to  Jay  belonged  the  chie 
merit  of  saving  the  fisheries,  quotes  John  Adams  as  writing  to  him — '  You 
have  erected  a  monument  to  your  memory  in  every  New  England  heart;'1 
and  a  letter  from  Hamilton,  saying:  "The  New  England  people  talk  of  mak- 
ing you  an  annual  fish  offering." 

The  undue  length  to  which  this  note  has  unintentionally  extended  itselj 
will,  no  doubt,  be  pardoned,  if  its  references  to  the  official  proofs  of  Jay's  sa- 
gacity in  discovering  and  defeating  the  designs  of  France  to  abridge  the 
territory,  limit  the  resources,  and  cripple  the  greatness  of  our  young  Repub- 
lic, shall  lead  to  a  definitive  settlement  of  the  historic  doubts  on  tins  subject, 
which  have  naturally  enough  been  engendered  by  the  too  hasty  opinion, 
long  since  uttered  after  a  partial  investigation  of  our  own  archives,  by  the 
venerable  historian,  and  biographer  of  Washington  and  Franklin. 

Extraordinary  as  it  may  seem  to  those  familiar  with  the  extent  of  the 
field  covered  by  Dr.  Spark's  historical  researches,  that  he  should  actually 
have  been  ignorant  of  the  decisive  bearing  on  this  discussion  of  the  reply  of 
Washington,  in  1797,  to  the  complaints  of  Mr.  Adet — at  once  undignified  and 
unjust — that  America  was  guilty  of  ingratitude  to  France,  and  of  the  unan- 
swerable testimoi  y  cited  by  Washington,  that  France  had  cancelled  any  debt 
we  might  have  owed  her  for  favours  during  the  Avar,  by  her  secret  attempts 
to  deprive  us,  at  its  close,  of  its  fair  fruits; — extraordinary  as  it  may  seem, 
that  Dr.  Sparks  should  never  even  have  alluded  in  this  connection,  to  the 
resurrection  at  the  hands  of  the  French  Directory,  of  the  secret  proofs,  buried 
deep  in  the  confidential  recesses  of  French  diplomacy,  of  "the  Machiavellian 
principle"  that  had  governed  the  friend-hip  towards  America  of  Vergennes 
and  Montmorin,  and  of  "tiiic  DUPLICITY,"  on  their  part,  that  "presided  over 
the  negotiations  of  peace,"  I  do  not  for  a  moment  suppose  that   Dr.  Sparks, 


Vll 

while  laying  stress  upon  the  documents  at  London  and  Paris  to  prove  the 
good  faitli  of  Vergennes  and  Montmorin,  purposely  concealed  from  his  readers 
the  incontrovertible  proofs  afforded  by  our  own  State  papers,  which  abso- 
lutely overthrow  his  theory. 

In  his  Life  of  Franklin,  (see  note,  vol.  I.,  p.  498.)  after  a  rash  attempt  to 
prove  that  Jay  was  wrong  in  not  allowing  the  French  Court  to  control  the 
negociation,  Mr.  Sparks  permitted  himself  to  remark  that  "  the  author"  of 
Jay's  Life,  the  late  honourable  William  Jay,  "appears  to  have  acquired  but  a 
limited  knowledge  of  the  negociation." 

It  would  have  been  impossible  for  Dr.  Sparks  to  have  indulged  in  such  a 
suggestion,  in  regard  to  one  whose  opportunities  for  learning  the  entire  his- 
tory of  the  Treaty  of  Paris  were  excelled  by  none,  had  he  actually  been 
aware  that  my  father's  memoirs  of  the  negociation,  and  of  the  part  borne  in 
it  by  the  ministers  of  France — endorsed  as  they  have  since  been  for  ac- 
curacy and  completeness  by  Lord  St.  Helens,  of  the  British  Court — had 
been  confirmed  in  advance  as  regards  the  correctness  of  their  facts,  the 
soundness  of  their  reasoning,  and  the  historic  truth  of  their  conclusion,!,  by 
the  testimony  of  Vergennes  and  Montmorin  themselves,  wrested  from  the 
recesses  of  the  French  archives  by  the  jeaiousy  of  the  French  Directory. 

I  freely  acquit  him  of  the  profound  injustice  of  which  he  would  have  been 
guilty  had  he  penned  his  defence  of  the  French  ministers  and  his  derogatory 
comments  upon  the  cool-headed,  watchful  sagacity  of  Jay  and  Adams,  after 
having  read  the  letter  to  Pinckney,  the  instructions  to  Genet,  or  the  official 
documents  communicated  by  the  Directory,  all  showing  that  it  was  their  sa- 
gacity that  penetrated  and  defeated  the  unfriendly  designs  of  our  French  ally 
and  not  simply  saved  our  Republic  from  the  disgrace  of  treating  in  a  subordi- 
nate capacity  for  the  satisfaction  of  England  and  of  Europe,  but  that  it  se- 
cured by  one  masterly  move — albeit,  in  disobedience  to  the  commands  of 
Congress — the  domain  of  our  Western  States  and  Northwestern  Territory,  the 
navigation  of  the  Mississippi,  and  the  Fisheries,  which,  as  France  and  Spain 
rightly  anticipated,  and  perhaps  reasonably  feared,  have  proved  il  a  nursery 
for  our  seamen." 

The  incidents  of  the  negociation  of  the  Treaty  of  Paris,  and  the  recollection 
of  the  humiliation  and  dangers  we  escaped,  and  the  glory  and  strength  which 
we  won,  by  turning  a  deaf  ear  to  the  courtly  as^u.anees  of  France,  and  re- 
fusing to  accept  an  European  monarchy  as  the  arbiter  of  our  destiny,  may 
teach  a  useful  lesson  to  those  who,  in  this  second  war  for  American  Inde- 
pendence, are  now  charged  with  the  diplomacy  o!' the  American  peop'e.  Tho 
inevitable  hostility  of  European  aristocrats  to  the  progress  of  our  Free  In- 
stitutions, in  whose  success  they  read  the  presage  of  their  own  decay — a 
hostility  which,  but  for  the  sagacity  and  resolution  of  our  negociators,  would 
have  checked  us  in  the  onset,  has  not  been  modified  by  the  unmistakable 
signs  which  have  since  marked  the  westward  course  of  the  Star  of  Empire* 
and  to-day,  whatever  their  differences  and  jealousies  among  themselves,  the 
great  powers  of  Europe,  with  the  exception  of  Russia,  entertain  a  common 
desire,  if  not  a  common  resolve,  to  assist  in  the  dissolution  ol  our  Republic :  and 


Vlll 

if  they  can  persuade  us  to  listen  with  credulity  to  their  diplomatic  assur- 
ances, they  may  easily  convert  us  into  tools  for  accomplishing  our  destruction. 
The  British  Cabinet  demand  our  admiration,  if  not  our  gratitude,  for  having 
inaugurated,  under  the  name  of  "  neutrality,"  a  system  of  Piracy  that  13 
lighting  the  ocean  with  the  flames  of  our  ships,  and  transferring  our  commerce 
to  British  vessels;  and  France  has  called  forth  expressions  of  "  eminent  satis- 
faction" from  Washington  by  such  emphatic  declarations  of  the  Emptror  as 
these.  "It  is  contrary  to  my  interest,  my  origin,  and  my  principles,  to  im- 
pose any  kind  of  Government  whatever  on  the  Mexican  people — they  may 
freely  choose  that  which  suits  them  best,  &c." 

That  same  France,  now  asks,  and  seems  to  expect  us  to  believe,  that 
the  subversion  of  the  Mexican  Republic,  the  establishment  of  a  Mexican 
Empire,  and  the  election  of  an  Austrian  to  represent,  as  Emperor  of  Mexico, 
the  policy  of  France,  was  not  at  all  the  act  of  Napoleon,  but  was  done  of 
their  own  accord,  by  the  Mexican  people. 

Every  American  diplomatist,  of  course,  who  judges  of  the  disposition  and 
policy  of  a  foreign  Government  by  its  acts,  and  not  by  its  professions,  and 
who  looks  at  those  acts  with  American  eyes,  and  not  through  the  rosy  spec- 
tacles politely  preferred  him  by  the  perpetrators,  will  be  compelled  to  meet 
the  charge  from  imbecile  credulity  of  taking  a  narrow  view  and  indulging  in 
unjust  and  unworthy  suspicions;  but  the  recollection  of  the  treaty  of  I'aris, 
and  of  the  subsequent  disclosures  by  the  French  Directory,  and  a  thought  of 
the  untold  advantages  then  secured  for  our  country,  by  a  simple  devotion  to 
her  rights  and  her  honour,  ur.beguiled  and  undiluted  by  the  officious  friendli- 
ness and  pressing  assurances  of  our  courtly  ally,  may  well  encourage  the 
exhibition  by  our  diplomatists  of  a  true  national  spirit,  which,  while  render- 
ing to  other  nations  their  just  rights  and  a  proper  courtesy,  "will  not  allow 
diplomatic  assurances  to  stultify  their  judgment  or  blind  their  vision. 

However  convenient  and  charming  in  social  life  may  be  the  habit  of 
gracefully  acquiescing  in  the  conventionalities  of  society,  that  have  occasion- 
ally more  of  courtesy  than  of  truth,  expressing  no  doubts,  entering  no  caveat, 
venturing  no  contradiction,  it  is  a  habit — the  adoption  of  which,  as  a  rule  of 
thought  and  action,  as  well  as  of  manner  and  expression — is  apt  to  prove  in- 
convient  alike  for  individuals  and  for  nations. 

Painful  as  it  may  be  to  the  sensibilities  of  amiable  optimists,  it  is  neverthe- 
less a  stern  truth,  that  our  Republic  has  still  to  contend  in  her  foreign 
diplomacy  with  those  "Machiavellian  principles"  —  and  that  hereditary 
"  duplicity,"  which,  with  less  resolute  negotiators  of  the  Treaty  of  Peace, 
would  have  miserably  betrayed  us  in  our  infancy ;  and  which  now,  after 
seventy  years,  unhappily  for  our  commerce,  our  honour  and  our  prestige, 
flaunt  their  triumph  over  our  innocent  credulity ;  illustrating,  by  the  exploits 
of  British  iron  clads,  the  sort  of  neutrality  that  England  regards  as  good 
enough  towards  a  Republic,  and  blazoning  upon  the  historic  record  of  Mexico 
the  Napoleonic  ideas  of  good  faith,  of  Non-intervention,  and  of  Popular 
Freedom, 


;    r       ,'    . 

Sir  :— 

The  Century  having  adopted  at  its  last  meeting  a  resolution  to  celebrate 
the  Seventieth  Birthday  of  its  distinguished  Associate,  Mi;.  Bryant,  on  the 
evening  of  the  5th  of  November  next,  the  Committee  of  Management  have 
the  pleasure  to  announce  the  following  arrangements  for  that  occasion  : 

Tickets  will  be  required  at  the  door,  and  may  be  obtained  from  the 
Steward,  at  any  time  previous  to  the  meeting. 

Addresses  of  Welcome  will  be  made  by  the  President  to  Mr.  Bryant  and 
to  the  invited  guests,  at  nine  o'clock. 

Supper  will  be  served  at  half-past  ten  o'clock. 

As  it  is  intended  to  decorate  the  rooms  with  natural  flowers,  the  Commit- 
tee beg  contributions  of  bouquets  and  baskets  from  the  Members,  to  be  sent  to 
the  Club  House  on  the  morning  of  the  5th  of  November.  They  request,  also, 
that  Evening  Dress  be  worn  at  the  reception. 

The  Members'  right  of  inviting  Guests  is  necessarily  suspended  for  that  evening 

In  order  to  defray  the  additional  expenses  without  burdening  the  Treas- 
ury, the  Committee  propose  to  issue  to  each  Member  desiring  it,  a  Lady's 
Ticket,  at  Three  Dollars.  These  may  be  obtained  from  the  Steward  until  the 
29th  of  October.  If  on  that  day  the  number  of  tickets  so  taken  falls  short 
of  250,  the  remainder  of  that  number  will  be  issued  to  subscribing  Members 
in  the  order  of  subscription,  not  more  than  one  extra  ticket  being  allotted 
to  each  subscriber. 

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